


i'll give them shelter (like you've done for me)

by kenmagoesblep



Category: Haikyuu!!
Genre: Aged-Up Character(s), Alternate Universe - Children, Alternate Universe - College/University, Alternative Universe - Wolf Children, Angst and Humor, Fluff, Fluff and Angst, Fluff and Humor, Gen, Humor, Implied/Referenced Homophobia, Light Angst, M/M, Occasional Use of Memes, Parenthood, Trans Character, Transboy!Akaashi, alcohol mention, bokuto and akaashi adopt hinata, characters get drunk literally once at chapter one and never more. thought you should know, wolf!hinata
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-02-08
Updated: 2018-09-24
Packaged: 2019-03-15 08:12:55
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 32,080
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13609230
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kenmagoesblep/pseuds/kenmagoesblep
Summary: Living with Bokuto wasn't nearly as chaotic as Akaashi imagined it would be - the chaos only started when an unexpected third resident was added to the mix.---or: the wolf children au no one asked for





	1. you're not alone anymore

**Author's Note:**

> the title comes from the song Shelter, by Porter Robinson & Madeon
> 
> \---
> 
> hello!!!! itsa me!!!!!!!!!!!! posting again, yay!!!!!!  
> i'll try not to take too long this time, since i'm awkward as fuck and all. so, yeah, here we are, at my first bokuaka fic, first chapter. it took me soooooo long to actually write it, i cant even believe i actually managed to finish it, i'm so happy alkdhsgalhgdlgkshdlk this fic brought me a lot of stress, but also a lot of joy, so its worth it to me!!!  
> i'm not sure how to describe this fic, to be exact, besides that its an emotional one,,,, and that i made myself scream and shout (and let it all out) a few times,,,,,,,, and that its a struggle to write it lmao  
> but the important things are: i love bokuaka, i also love hinata and parent fics, so here i am, putting all the things together to get the most self indulgent fic i've ever written lgahglkahgalsdkgsdl and i hope y'all have a good time reading it as well.  
> (side note: i'm not very experienced in ao3 tagging so if there's something missing or something misstagged, p l e a s e warn me)  
> i'd like to thank all my precious friends for helping me out!!! they're all super sweet and supportive and i couldnt get better friends!!!!  
> ok i'm done babbling now, b y e

Akaashi didn’t really know what to expect from his first day in university—nor from the rest of his life, to be quite honest. He was starting a literature major and moving to Tokyo. His life was not a particularly hard one up until that point, with volleyball, school and books as the biggest constants in his life, a little surprises here and there, so it’d probably continue this way.

 

He decided to not think about that too much, at least, not until he found his dorm. He had been walking around the campus for a while, looking around with no real directions and the few people he couldn’t give him any instructions: seeming as lost as he was, they were probably freshmen as well.

 

But, in the middle of his observation, he accidentally made eye contact with someone. _Oh shit, that’s awkward._ Akaashi stiffened in his spot, but tried to keep a blank face so he doesn’t make things worse. The stranger smiled, waved and started walking in his direction.

 

“Hey hey hey!” he greeted him as he came closer, smiling as if they knew each other for a long time, his spiky black and white hair bouncing a little at every step. “You look lost! Are you new?”

 

“Yes.” Akaashi was taken aback by the question. That guy wasn’t lost? So why was he looking around? He wasn’t carrying any bags, though… Maybe he was just out for a walk. Either way, if he was one of his seniors, he could help, so Akaashi let himself smile, kind of relieved. “I’m just moving in, looking for the dorms.”

 

“Really?! I’m looking for the dorms, too!” he exclaimed happily, slapping Akaashi’s back in a friendly gesture a little harder than it should be.  “We can look for it together!”

 

“You _don’t know_ where the dorms are?” Akaashi tried really hard to not sound too rude. _Damn_ , that slap really hurt.

 

“Nope.” He continued smiling, but at least he looked apologetic. Slightly. “I don’t really have classes by this side of campus, I just came here to meet a friend, but I don’t know how to get back to the dorms.”

 

“I see.” That was a reasonable explanation, Akaashi figured. It would be far less unpleasant to walk around campus with company, too, so he shrugged it off. “So, can we keep going?” He pressed the subject, pointing towards the road with his head, his hands too full with heavy baggage to do anything.

 

“Ah, sure!” the guy exclaimed and started to walk right beside him.

 

They walked together for a long time, talking all the way. Or, at least, _he_ was talking the whole walk.

 

Bokuto Koutarou, as he introduced himself, _really liked to chat_ , and he’d chat about anything. He started the conversation asking about Akaashi’s major, where he came from, about his interests, likes and dislikes… It felt like he was giving an interview, before Bokuto started to talk about himself.

 

Bokuto was majoring in physiotherapy, lived in the dorms despite his parents also living in the Tokyo region just so he could live with his best friend, and was part of the university’s volleyball team alongside said best friend. He was a wing spiker—which shed some light upon his very… _nice_ physique—and was very excited to learn Akaashi played volleyball in high school, even though he had no intentions of joining the team. Bokuto also had an habit of talk about the first things that crossed his mind, like how he loved animals and action movies and all-you-can-eat restaurants, but really hated the color lime green and smashed instant noodles.

 

By the end of their walk to the dorms, Akaashi knew many things about Bokuto and two about himself: he was a hopeless romantic and already liked the guy too much.

 

Akaashi was well aware that it could go away, since they just met each other and that it was mostly based on a long monologue about random things, but, knowing himself too well, he was never the type to have many crushes and when he did, they lasted, so… He was fucked.

 

He was royally fucked, even, since he kept meeting Bokuto around all the time, be it at the dorms at the ends of classes, at the dining hall, at the coffee shops around the campus or the nearest supermarkets and convenience stores. Not a surprise, considering both of them are cheap college students with no car, but still.

 

It was common for Akaashi to be interrupted by Bokuto, who saw him from a distance and came to talk to him, to chat about whatever came through his mind at any given moment, be it something to do with their environment or the occasional object he saw around. Like birds. That one was a recurring subject to talk about. Bokuto really loved horned owls—which should be expected, considering that it was literally his name, but still kinda funny. Or about his favorite cereal, or about one funny video he saw of someone playing music with a rubber chicken, or…

 

This, by itself, made Akaashi’s life way harder. Having to deal with him at random times, not ever feeling ready to have so much information and enthusiasm thrown in his direction, or how to keep his own excitement in check and not seep into his voice, was an ordeal. Those were the only situations he liked not being good at expressing his feelings.

 

But then, in no time, they started to actually hang out.

 

The first time it happened was when Bokuto crashed into his room the night before an important test to remind him the importance of taking breaks and eating, getting more intense about the whole idea when he saw the amounts of cream cracker packages and instant noodles around his dorm room.

 

“Let’s, uhh, I don’t know, watch a movie! Play some board games! Go eat something! Do anything, really!” Bokuto said, tugging at his arm, fighting to get the pen off of his hand “You haven’t left your room in three days, Akaashi, you probably already forgot how the outside world looks!”

 

“No, Bokuto-san, I didn’t.” Akaashi grunted a response, gripping harder on his pen and leaning to the opposite side for a second, but begrudgingly let it go the next one. He needed some goddamn rest so much, even though wasn’t so sure about leaving those last three chapters of modern literature theory behind, that he couldn’t keep fighting.

 

“Awh, I know you didn’t actually forget, but you know what I mean!” Bokuto insisted, pouting at him like a kid, with the biggest puppy eyes ever.

 

 _Fuck_ , he was too weak for this. He decided to look somewhere else just so he could avoid staring, hoping that he wasn’t too red on the cheeks.

 

“C’mon, let’s do something fun. You won’t really learn anything new right now, anyway.”

 

“ _Fine._ ” Akaashi could feel his heart beating against ribcage as he huffed out a response, trying to get all that bubbly feeling out of his chest.

 

At that point, it wasn’t some mere crush, it had already crossed the line to infatuation, and it was really hard to refuse anything Bokuto asked him to do. And even if he did refuse, Bokuto was _absolutely right_ , because he’d probably spend the rest of his day silently pining.

 

And the way Bokuto beamed at him when he agreed immediately made it worth it.

 

“Great! Kuroo and Oikawa will be happy to know you’re joining us!” he proclaimed as he dragged Akaashi out of his room and towards the common area, where the two mentioned boys were waiting, bickering over something until they got in, and then both of them looked at Bokuto’s direction and smiled in what Akaashi could only describe as suspicious. Huh.

 

That night was cool, playing some of their weird board games, and Kuroo and Oikawa weren’t so bad if he disconsidered their awful jokes and incessant bickering.

 

But Akaashi decided to joined them more times—almost on a weekly basis—because of Bokuto. It was hard for him to admit, even to himself, but being around Bokuto made his days a lot better. Being in Bokuto’s presence was like standing in a patch of sun on a cold day, a splash of color on his boring student life; he couldn’t keep himself away, even if he felt like an idiot for falling so fast.  

 

But he started to feel considerably less stupid when he realized Bokuto was trying to flirt with him. It wasn’t a hard conclusion to get, because Bokuto made himself easily understood, but Akaashi didn’t start thinking that for the obvious reasons: it wasn’t because Bokuto gave him compliments all the time, always sat or stood very close, was always searching for an opportunity for physical contact and affection or anything like that.

 

No, Bokuto was like that with everyone, he was just this nice. Akaashi figured it out mostly through small differences in his behavior. Like the fact that he’d make a lot more compliments about Akaashi’s appearance and did it very frequently, or that he’d stare at Akaashi a lot when he wasn’t looking, that he jumped from feet to feet and blushed when they were alone, and Akaashi was pretty sure Bokuto tried to hold his hand at least once. Without mentioning the suggestive, teasing smiles his friends would launch on their direction from far away.

 

Admittedly, the idea of correspondence was really good, but doing anything to make it come true was a lot harder than he thought. Akaashi was never at the position of confessing to someone, only being at the receiver’s end, politely turning down young girl’s confessions, so he didn’t know exactly how to tackle the subject. Or, to be precise, he could think of one or two ways to get to him, being a huge book nerd and all, but none that he could really pull off. Akaashi did seem like he was calm and collected, that he had things under control at any given moment, his subtle facial expressions adding to that effect, but it was far from the truth. Akaashi was much more shy than people gave him credit for and absolutely didn’t have the courage necessary to pull off any of those bold confessions.

 

They danced around their feelings for a long time, being around each other all the time, giving subtle compliments, getting closer into each other’s personal space, gravitating around each other but not getting any closer, until it became unbearable to continue.

 

Akaashi’s feelings were slowly seeping through the cracks. Bokuto was constantly there, dragging him places, saying the gayest things with the biggest ‘no homo’ tone but still blushing, still trying to discreetly hold his hand. It was hard to keep a straight face and not vomit all the butterflies that were filling his stomach. Akaashi constantly caught himself smiling at silly thoughts, sighing while looking through windows, doodling all over his notes…  It was starting to get ridiculous. He was a (legally) fucking adult but acted like a 14 year-old with a crush.

 

And it continued to get ridiculous for the whole semester, until it was the last day of their final’s week. And, given the amount of stuff they had to do, Akaashi and Bokuto didn’t get to see each other all that time — both making their best efforts to finish every essay, to hand in every assignment and to get passing grades on all their subjects, trying to get back all the hours they procrastinated — and just waving at each other in the dorm’s corridors wasn’t nearly enough.

 

The first contact they did that week was when Akaashi got out of his class after his last test and decided to text Bokuto immediately, too done with everything to worry about being obvious about missing him. Akaashi just wanted his refreshing, comforting presence, see his handsome face, get one of those bone-crushing hugs and do anything together, as long as it was fun. So, when Bokuto promptly answered, excited to talk to him and invite him to go to a party that night — the last party of the year, thrown to celebrate the end of final’s week — he decided to roll with it.

 

It wasn’t Akaashi’s perfect definition of fun, but going to a party didn’t sound all that bad. He didn’t attend any party that year, not even those dedicated to the freshmen, because Akaashi didn’t enjoy crowded places, loud music or getting really drunk. But Bokuto told him that that party wasn’t going to be a very big one—most people didn’t wait to go back home and the place wasn’t a very known one.

 

“Besides, you won’t be forced to drink if you really don’t want to,” Bokuto added on the last few seconds of a very big, very enthusiastic audio he sent to explain everything. “No one will do that to you, they’re all chill guys.”

 

Those things, plus his urge for having fun and seeing his crush, were the convincing factors that brought Akaashi and his only good clothes — under his thickest winter jacket, scarf and gloves because it was too cold to go anywhere without those — to the party.

 

And it wasn’t bad for the most part. He remembered taking out his winter clothing as soon as they got in because it was very hot inside, getting very obvious stares from Bokuto that he didn’t do anything about, hearing Oikawa’s and Kuroo’s giggles before they went right to the dancefloor, and then following Bokuto around for a while, until he got lost from him and found Konoha Akinori, one of his classmates. They chatted for a while and Akaashi was actually having fun until Konoha decided to ran off into the crowd as well, going after a cute girl he saw.

 

So Akaashi was left alone by the side of the bar to deal with flirty men and women that did not interest him the least and the only way he found of not leaving right away—since he didn’t want to leave Bokuto alone to deal with Oikawa’s and Kuroo’s drunk asses after the party—was to actually drink that beer that one of them bought him.

 

 _Drink until he felt a little less shy than usual,_ that was the objective.

 

And it did happen. He recollected that after two cups of beer, he wasn’t standing still anymore, but actually dancing a little bit to himself. Some more cups and he was actually having conversations with flirty strangers and laughing quite a bit. A little more and he decided to join Kuroo and Oikawa on their mad dancing, since they seemed to be having a lot of fun.

 

Then, he remembered seeing Bokuto dancing, holding a water bottle on one hand while he moved the rest of his body, smiling like a mad man. He looked _so good_ on those tight jeans, his jacket tied to his hips, unbuttoned flannel shirt and sweaty white t-shirt under all of it. Akaashi retributed the stares he got earlier and smiled at him when they made eye contact. Bokuto laughed, blushed and attempted to talk to him, but the crowd easily parted them, and Akaashi went back to dancing—not before gulping down the remaining beer on his cup to get another one, because he was thirsty. _Very thirsty_.

 

Akaashi realized he made a mistake when he noticed he wasn’t doing too well on standing or talking and decided to look for his friends. More specifically, for Bokuto, since he didn’t forget his crush’s commitment to not drink any alcohol. He was an athlete, after all—and booze was very bad for his body.

 

So Akaashi stared at the crowd, located Bokuto and shimmied his way between a lot of other people to get to him, this time getting his attention by tugging at his arm.

 

“Akaashi!” Bokuto greeted him once again with a grin, slowing down his dancing, only realizing that it was serious business when he saw Akaashi’s face. “What’s up?” he asked with equal parts concern and confusion.

 

“I’m drunk,” Akaashi deadpanned, trying to stand still, but slanting to the left a little bit, before trying to put himself up again.

 

“ _What?_ ” Bokuto asked louder, trying to get closer. The small beams of colorful lights didn’t allow him to properly read the other boy’s lips.

 

“I. _Am._ **_Drunk,_ ** ” Akaashi repeated, almost screaming, putting his hand on Bokuto’s shoulder and holding tight.

 

The last things Akaashi remembered was Bokuto’s worried face and the way he got held when he was about to fall, blacking out after that. He woke up the next morning in his dorm room, wearing his pajamas, tucked under his blankets and comforters, with the biggest headache he ever had.

 

 _Oh no._ Akaashi’s eyes stared at his ceiling as he started to think of all the stupid shit he could’ve done during those hours that he completely forgot about. His hands started to search for his stuff around his bed and side table, sighing in relief when he found his cell phone, wallet and keys.  But it still didn’t guarantee that he didn’t say embarrassing things to strangers, to his friends, or even worse, _to Bokuto_. He could deal with weirding out strangers or telling stupid things to Oikawa and Kuroo (even if it meant that he’d be tesed for the rest of his adult life), but he couldn’t bear the possibility of accidentally confessing to his huge crush when he was drunk, or making inappropriate comments about his appearance. Akaashi never got that drunk before and wasn’t sure about his own drunk habits.

 

He stayed on his bed for several minutes trying to think of some way to face Bokuto after possibly saying either embarrassing or lewd things to him, but Akaashi didn’t have much time to think, because Bokuto Koutarou himself knocked on the door and got in with a plastic bag on his left hand about twenty minutes after.

 

**_Oh No._ **

 

“Oh, hi, Akaashi,” Bokuto said in glee when he saw his friend was awake, lowering his voice when Akaashi hid his face under his blankets, probably thinking it was because of his hangover. “Oops, sorry...” He tiptoed around the room, trying to avoid his friend’s abandoned clothing and shoes from the last night. He sat on the ground next to his bed. “Look, it’s already 2 p.m., so I thought it was best to come feed you. I brought you some McDonald’s, Kuroo says greasy food are good for hangovers.”

 

“Thank you…” Akaashi slowly came out of his blanket shelter and sat, taking in hands the sandwich and fries that Bokuto kindly brought to him. He ate quietly for a while, until he decided he needed to break the silence and possibly start talking about the party, so he could gently ask if he said something bad. “So… did you enjoy yesterday’s party?”

 

“Hell yeah! It was awesome!” Bokuto smiled even wider, getting his own sandwich and fries from the bag and starting to eat too. “Some great songs played yesterday, there were lots of friends of mine there, we played some games, and—oh yeah! I got blackmail material from Kuroo and Oikawa!” He celebrated, showing his friend’s horrible pictures on his phone. Akaashi wheezed.

 

“They’re not going to enjoy that as much, Bokuto.” Akaashi pointed out, chuckling, but still uneasy. He chewed on his lower lip instead of his chicken sandwich.

 

“ _Duh,_ that’s the point,” Bokuto laughed too, but left his cell phone by his side to go back to his food right after. “I wouldn’t really use it, though. I just like the funny pictures.”

 

“I figured.” There was a long silence after that. Long, unsettling silence. Bokuto seemed to be acting normal, like nothing happened, but he was still kind of red to the face, so Akaashi couldn’t be sure of that. He had to ask. “So… did I… do… anything yesterday?” he tried to keep his cool, forcing a straight face, even though he could feel his blood running up his neck and to his cheeks.

 

“Huh? Nah, you didn’t do anything.” Bokuto shrugged. “I did carry you home and help you… Ahem…” This time, he looked the other way, smiling rather cowardly. “Help you change into your pajamas… But that’s what friends are for, right? Besides…” But he was soon looking at him again, grinning, flexing both his arms. “I’m strong as fuck! Carrying you around was nothing!”

 

Akaashi wanted to sigh in relief, but ended up bursting in laughter, curling in on himself as if trying to hide, holding his stomach in his hands. His drunk self had at least the decency of leaving his indecent commentary unsaid.

 

“You’re such a dork, Bokuto,” he said after all his laughing, his smile only getting stronger when he saw Bokuto’s amused face, his chest swelling up as if his heart was about to explode. “You’re lucky I like you.”

 

“You… You what?” Bokuto laughed at first, but his laughter died in his throat and gave place to deadly silence.

 

Apparently, drunk Akaashi Keiji was better at keeping his feelings a secret than his hangover-self, because he managed to say the gayest thing ever without really meaning to.

 

He just… confessed. Just like that.

 

…  

 

What an idiot.

 

His eyes grew wide as he and Bokuto stared each other, their faces getting increasingly red, the air around them getting thicker with the smell of fried food and their embarrassment. Akaashi felt so warm and his heart was racing so fast that he thought he was truly having a heart attack. He was just waiting for the chest pain and death that he deserved, but it didn’t came. And since he wasn’t dead, he needed to clarify what he had just said and get that over with.

 

“I… Like you, Bokuto-san.” Akaashi accidentally retreated to formalities, that Bokuto asked him to drop time and time again. His voice still sounded practically normal, just the tiniest bit lower, the words not wanting to come out. He could imagine saying it like that in some BL manga, which just made his wish to die stronger. “I really do.”

 

Bokuto blinked a few times before talking.

 

“I… really like you too, Akaashi,” he replied with an ambiguous tone, making it impossible for Akaashi to tell if it was in a ‘no homo’ way or not until Bokuto’s lips tugged upward, a little bit shaky. “So… You wanna go out? Like… On a date?”

 

“ _Yeah._ ” his response came off as a longing sigh even though Akaashi made actual effort to keep his excitement to himself.

 

Bokuto grinned back, his eyes scrunching up as he did, before going back to his lunch and trying to play cool, talking about it as if it was no big deal even though he was visibly shaking like an excited child. _He’s cute,_ Akaashi thought not for the first time, eagerly going back to his food too in an attempt to keep the fragile remains of his controlled demeanor and collected facade—not that there was much to hold on to after he confessed like a highschool girl.

 

“So, are you free tonight?” Bokuto blurted out after a streak of random conversation topics, making audible effort to not sound too desperate but still eager as always, glancing at him with hopeful eyes. “I mean, if you’re feeling better by then. We can go eat somewhere.”

 

Akaashi didn’t put much thought to it before muttering “Sure.” and stuffing his face with fries right after. It wasn’t a bad idea to postpone his trip back home in a day, especially since he was seriously hangover and he didn’t want to deal with the packed subways and the Tokyo Station itself when he was having such a headache.

 

(And he was still too weak to turn Bokuto down.)

 

“Hell yeah!” Bokuto celebrated loudly like he just scored a point on a match, his smile shining brighter than the sun outside. “You pick the place, I pay the bill?”

  
“You already paid for this.” Akaashi raised his burger just to prove his point. “And helped me yesterday. You choose the place.”

 

They ended up going for a small ramen shop near campus that night, that was filled with the smell of fresh broth, the gyoza they were frying, and the cologne mix coming from all those tired businessmen that were also there after a hard day of work.

 

And it was nice.

 

The food was as comforting as he expected it to be on a cold winter night, warming up his bones, soothing and putting an end to his endless hunger but not calming enough to quiet down his anxiousness wreaking havoc in there, nor cancel the static between them when they finally held hands over the table, intertwining their fingers, Bokuto rubbing circles with his thumb on Akaashi’s skin.

 

It wasn’t a very productive date, conversation-wise, since Akaashi never had much dating experience to begin with and Bokuto looked in a loss of words almost all of time, but they managed. Between weird conversation topics brought up and awkward flirting, they smiled and laughed and barely noticed as the hours went by until the shop owner politely asked them to leave.

 

But somehow they managed to kiss for the first time that night, a chaste, quick goodbye kiss that Bokuto stole from him after they hugged for several seconds in front of Akaashi’s dorm room, saying he would miss him during winter break.

 

Akaashi didn’t answer, not even with a whisper, but it was true for him, too.

 

Winter felt colder that year, even at his own house, sitting under the kotatsu with his mother, watching movies, reading magazines and drinking his favorite tea. It was great to relax and not have to think about college, for sure, but Akaashi still found himself staring longingly through the window or at his phone’s screen, sappy messages and cute selfies didn’t quite fill in the empty space in his chest. Having Bokuto there with him would be a lot nicer, even if that meant sacrificing the calm and quiet of his home. That could be arranged at some other winter break, maybe… But that was just wishful thinking.

 

Despite all that, he managed to completely avoid saying anything about Bokuto to his mom, at least, anything that had to do with their date —  something that he considered an achievement, considering how many times she poked at him, trying to make him admit to something, having heard him sigh way too many times to not suspect anything.

 

Akaashi didn’t want to speak too soon and set his possible relationship to failure, not after pining for so long. He desperately wanted things to work out, to have a lot of dates and spend a lot of time with him, to turn his daydreams into reality, kiss him a million times more.

 

And he got to do all of those. When classes started again and they were back at the dorms, they were quick to have more dates together, going out to eat, going to the movies, museums, coffee shops, and sometimes even have study dates. Slowly, Akaashi started wearing Bokuto’s clothes, their shopping lists merged into a single one (even though they were in different dorm rooms) and Akaashi’s pens started to pile up on Bokuto’s desk, accompanied by the little notes he’d leave there before going back to his own room — most of them reminders of things Bokuto had to do, with occasional drawings in the corners.

 

The only days they didn’t go on dates, they’d be accompanied by Kuroo and Oikawa, sticking to their weekly-hangout tradition.

 

“You guys are _so married_ it’s disgusting.” Oikawa complained almost every time. “Seriously, get your domestic shit out of my dorms.”

 

They knew Oikawa wasn’t serious about that — even though he always claimed to hate all of them whenever he lost a game or was made fun of by the group, he would sulk hard any time they had to change dates and was always searching for them on his free time— but the idea wasn’t a completely bad one. The idea of domesticity resonated with Akaashi and it was growing on him each passing day, whenever he got one of Bokuto’s weird gifts or wore his shirts, or spent the night at his room, cuddling. As sappy and disgusting as it was, he couldn’t deny it was something he wanted in his life.

 

It could totally be something impulsive, he might change his mind in the future, but it was clear to him that he felt something special with Bokuto, _for Bokuto_ , that he wanted to be with him for as long as his life allowed him. And he wanted to talk seriously about it at the first opportunity he got.

 

One night, after they paid for their food, Bokuto caught Akaashi’s hand and they both left the restaurant, meeting the cold air and a surprisingly starry sky outside. Or, at least, starry to Tokyo standards, the streetlights usually preventing them from seeing the stars. They both admired it for a while, then admired each other, seeing the sparkle in each other’s eyes, intertwining their fingers together, before Bokuto started to complain about feeling cold and wanting to go back to the dorms.

 

As they walked through the streets, they started to share some of their deepest thoughts. It’s not like they hadn’t done that before—Bokuto used to talk a lot about his worries as the ace of the university’s team, how he didn’t want to let people down and didn’t feel like he was really reliable, and Akaashi was shy at first but eventually told him about how he dreamed to be a writer, but was scared of trying, that he didn’t find himself creative enough, and other things— but that was the first time since they started dating that they spoke about it more deeply.

 

“I want to leave Tokyo, to be honest,” Bokuto confessed, scratching the back of his neck with his free hand, looking at the ground at first, smiling rather shyly.

 

 _Cute_ , Akaashi thought, appreciating that tiny smile as much as he appreciated (and still does) his confident smiles, flirty smiles, or, better yet, all of his smiles. _All of him_.

 

“I want to have a big house someday, on the countryside, maybe near the ocean, I don’t know.” Bokuto’s head raised up to the sky while he talked. “I want to have kids, too, and hug them everyday when I get home from work.” Silence. It seemed like he wanted to hear something in return, but Akaashi just stared, amused. Bokuto blushed deeply. “What? Do you think it’s a lame dream?”

 

“No, not at all,” he smiled in return, feeling his heart flutter, the butterflies in his stomach somehow still alive even after a year of (officially) dating and almost three hours at the all-you-can-eat restaurant. “I wouldn’t mind if we had kids someday.” Akaashi finally said it, the thing he was thinking about for such a long time, somehow managing to do that smoothly as fuck.

 

“...” It seemed like Bokuto didn’t understand it at first, staring him bewildered, his golden eyes wide and mouth agape, but, in a matter of seconds, his eyes were glistening (probably from tears), his face was an even darker shade of red than it was before and his mouth opened up to shriek: “A-Akaaaaaaashi!!!!” He jumped, letting go of Akaashi’s hands to envelop him in a limb-crushing, yet warm, hug.

 

“Please, call me by my first name…” he muttered against Bokuto’s shoulder, hiding his own smile, tapping his boyfriend’s back for a while before fully corresponding the hug, feeling like he’s going to explode—which wasn’t bad by any means, really. He was just really happy that it worked. “Koutarou.” He continued, being squished even more as a response.

 

“Okay, okay…” Bokuto let go after a few seconds, catching his hands and holding them affectionately. “Sorry, Keiji.” He looked like he was about to say something else, but was interrupted by a sudden gust of wind, chilling their bones. “Fuck, we should go.” Akaashi agreed, feeling his muscles tense up because of the cold, and they resumed their walking.

 

After that, they decided to move in together to a small apartment near the campus. It was just a room with a kitchen and a bathroom—the only place they could afford in Tokyo without asking their parents for too much extra money—but they wouldn’t mind living there. It wasn’t all that different than living in the dorms, since there wasn’t a lot more space than those rooms and they were near the grocery stores and hangout spots that they already frequented.

 

Unsurprisingly, despite always telling them to do that, Oikawa cried when they announced that they were moving out of the dorms and that they already picked an apartment, but still helped them pack their stuff. He even went as far as buying them a gift — a joke doormat that said “oh shit not you again”, that Kuroo helped him pick — saying that this was his way of making sure that they’d never forget him.

 

Kuroo laughed for almost five minutes at that, telling Oikawa that they were both too epic to be forgotten, but still hugged Bokuto for a long time before he and Akaashi left.

 

And living with Bokuto wasn’t nearly as chaotic as Akaashi thought it would be. He made the same mess as he did at the dorms (it looked considerably better now that it was only his stuff, without Kuroo’s, though) but didn’t put up as much of a fight as Akaashi imagined he would when asked to clean up and easily agreed with the chores division. Bokuto also knew how to cook, he was just too lazy to do that often, mostly relying on pre-made food unless he wanted something different. The only thing that really bothered his boyfriend was him singing meme music in the shower and not getting his hair out of the drain.

 

The chaos started when an unexpected third resident was added to the mix.

 

It was a saturday and Akaashi spent a little over half an hour at the market, roaming the hallways and picking what he thought they’d need for the week that was ahead—rice, some vegetables, the few meats they knew how to cook, lots of packages of instant ramen, Bokuto’s favorite cereal, milk, eggs and green tea Kit Kats—and left as quickly as possible. He had no interest in being out on the streets after midnight, exposed to the heat of summer and all those damn buzzing insects. Not to mention he was also very hungry, feeling his stomach rumble. He should’ve taken a break from his essay-typing to eat something.

 

But as soon as he walked through the doors, he heard a weird noise; one he could not identify right away. It wasn’t especially loud, but Akaashi could tell it came from somewhere nearby and it didn’t bother him that much. It could easily be just some cats fighting, so he just went on his way, until he started getting closer to the source and slowly realized what the sound was exactly.

 

 _It’s clearly a crying baby._ Where was it coming from, though? Akaashi looked around, checking the street to see if it wasn’t someone carrying their child, but the sidewalks were practically empty. There was the lady on the other side of the street (who was distracted with her phone), him and the side of a building.

 

He followed the wall to the end of it, reaching the small alleyway where people from that apartment complex left their garbage—the wailing was obviously coming from there. He felt his innards contort, but not from hunger anymore, nor from the foul odor that came from the trash, and a new, louder wail from the small baby was his cue to drop his groceries on the ground and start searching for the infant.

 

It didn’t take him long to find them. There they were, wrapped in a fluffy blanket, lying inside a cardboard box right beside the metal trash cans and still wearing their hospital identification on their tiny wrist, bawling their little eyes out.

 

“Shhh, shhh,” the young man tried to calm the newborn, picking them up from their makeshift bed with fumbling arms, even though he couldn’t remember ever holding such a young human being ever in his life and has no real idea how to do it. “It’s ok, everything is ok.”

 

Why was he talking to the baby? Akaashi was pretty sure newborns didn’t really understand spoken language but he kept talking anyway, in the most serene way he could muster, trying to calm the child and rocking them in his arms, although he was dealing with the biggest feeling of revulsion he has felt _in a while_ . How could _anyone_ have such a cold heart to leave _their newborn baby_ amidst **_the garbage_ ** ? He could think of good reasons for someone to not want a child, but a good reason to do _that_ does not exist, period. But even though his disgust probably showed in his face, he managed to soothe the little one, their wails gradually stopping.

 

Akaashi sighed in relief, but didn’t enjoy it for too long. There was no orphanage, police station or hospital nearby where he could bring the baby, he had no car he could use to drive there. It looked like it was about to rain (heavily, he concluded after hearing the distant sound of a thunder) and there were the groceries he still needed to carry. He gulped, seeing no other option besides going home with the infant and seeing what he could do from there.

 

Holding the baby, he got up and went back to his bags, picking them up with one of his hands before leaving—which was a lot harder to do than he expected, the plastic bags’ handles almost cutting his fingers and falling all the time— and he felt constantly scared of letting the baby slip out of his sweaty arms. This might have been the longest he took to walk from the market to his apartment ever in his life. But the worst thing to do by far was opening the door with no hands, realizing after multiple knocks on the door that Bokuto wouldn’t open for some reason and that knocking any further would wake up the newborn.

 

When he finally managed to open the door, Akaashi got in without announcing his arrival. He took off his shoes in a hustle, left the groceries by the fridge and went straight to the bed, sitting and finally relaxing a bit. It started to rain as soon as he got in.

 

This was the time he finally took a real look at the baby, feeling a little better now that he got them out of that trash and into a safe place. They had thin orange hair, pale skin, a cute button nose, a small mouth that was very busy sucking to an equally small thumb and big eyes that had yet to open, leaving just incredibly long eyelashes for someone that little.

 

They were sleeping so peacefully in his arms, he felt weirdly _parental_ , but the good feeling quickly started mixing with the same disgust from earlier. Such a cute newborn didn’t deserve to be abandoned like that, left to die in an alleyway. That’s **fucked up**. Akaashi convinced himself he’d punch the person who did that if they ever met, which was very unlikely. Or, at least, he’d feel like punching them, that’s for sure.

 

“Everything will be fine now,” he whispered, giving the sleeping infant a soft smile, rocking them slightly in his arms. “You’ll be fine.”

 

“Who are you talking to?” Bokuto came out of the bathroom at the same instant, with a towel wrapped around his hips, coming closer to sit right by him and look. Akaashi stared as he got closer, just because. “Oooooh…” his voice got quieter. “Keiji, why are you holding a baby? Did you steal it?”

 

“You’re the one who’d do that.” He chuckled, immediately hearing protests from his boyfriend, but they both knew it was true. Bokuto was the one that always would see stray animals and want to adopt them, even though their landlord clearly forbid them from having pets, which is very endearing of him, if you ask Akaashi in private. “I found them in the trash.”

 

“In the trash?!” his volume grew louder with good reason, but Akaashi promptly shushed him, worried it would disturb the child. “What the fuck!!!” he continued, as if he didn’t hear.

 

“ _I know._ ” He agreed way too much with him to really be angry about his volume, but they both went quiet when the baby let out a tiny whimper and stirred a little in his arms, seeming like they were going to wake up, just to go back to peaceful slumber.

 

The couple stared at the newborn in awe for several seconds, as multiple thoughts ran through their minds. Was this surge of affection towards a baby they barely even knew normal? It felt weirdly comfortable there, the three of them cuddled up together, the rain heavily pouring on the outside. Bokuto and Akaashi probably would never see this baby again after giving them to the hospital to be properly taken care of, but they sure wished that they feel the same when they finally get to be proper parents, with stable jobs and a better house to raise a child.

 

“What should we do, though?” Akaashi broke the silence after a while, his arms feeling sore from holding the child for such a long time. He couldn’t do that for the rest of his life, even if he wanted to.

 

“We can always keep them,” Bokuto suggested with a genuine smile on his face, blinking slowly at Akaashi as if trying to seduce him, to convince him, and he even actually considered about it in the back of his mind, but shutted the thought out immediately. He pouted for a second, but went back to being serious right after. “Or…  we could take a cab to the nearest hospital.”

 

“I don’t think I have any cash,” he struggled to get his wallet out of his pocket, holding the baby close to his chest so he could use one of his hands, just to confirm his guess—not a single yen was there. “Do you?”

 

“Uuhhhhh…” Bokuto looked around the room before getting up, wandering around the apartment, raising random objects, looking behind every possible furniture, just to find his wallet in the last pair of pants he wore and grunt. “I have nothing… I think I spent it all on food.”

 

“I see…” He probably did the same, Akaashi concluded, but left it unsaid. There were more important things to deal with, like what to do with the infant, that needed solving. It was his time to look around searching for answers, or at least for some inspiration, because coming up with a solution to a problem like that at 1a.m. needed some creativity.

 

Some minutes passed by in absolute silence until they heard the faint sound of TV coming from one of his neighbor’s apartments. Children’s programs, he figured by the sound of squeaky voices and childish music. Oh, yeah, their next door neighbor—Ms. Suzumeda, Akaashi recalled—had young kids, one of them had recently been born. They could ask for some supplies so they could take care of their – the ginger baby for the night and think about how to get them to safety in the morning. Yes, that sounded like a good idea, they agreed on that.

 

“You’re a genius, Keiji! How would I ever go on without you?” Bokuto said in glee while he dressed up, deciding to go with him to give him moral support (since he felt really awkward going to her door at such a time), bringing the child with them to be extra convincing.

 

Luckily, Suzumeda Kaori was just as nice as they remembered, even if she really looked like a complete mess—her hair was all over the place, she was wearing what looked like very old stained pajamas and she looked very tired, but she was all smiles. She took pity on the poor newborn they were taking care of and gladly lend them a baby bottle, some formula, a few diapers, a package of wet wipes and a change of clothes that she insisted they’d probably need.

 

Her cat, on the other side, was acting really weird: instead of being friendly like he usually was, he looked at them with suspicion, his back arched, walking away from them. Why was he scared? He’d usually come greet Akaashi, asking to be petted. Was the cat having trouble recognizing him? It kinda hurt, he thought he was friends with the feline, but didn’t complain, just thanking Ms. Suzumeda for her kindness, bowing slightly, and going back to his own apartment.

 

The baby was still asleep in Akaashi’s arms when they got back, but he couldn’t hold them for any longer because it was starting to be painful, so they set the guest’s futon next to their bed, surrounded it with pillows (and owl plushies, Bokuto insisted the child would like to cuddle up with one) and placed them there, finally allowing him to rest. He threw himself on the bed, bouncing in the mattress before letting himself sink in it, way too comfortable to leave, willing to go to sleep in tight jeans. Bokuto soon joined, mumbling something about taking turns to watch over the kid that night against the curve of his neck when they cuddled, embracing him tightly, and they fell asleep just like that.

 

Akaashi woke up feeling cold from the absence of his boyfriend. He heard the baby weep as he was being slapped repeatedly in the leg by said boyfriend, and it fucking hurt— _a lot_. The lights were on, making the act of opening his eyes almost impossible, but when he did, he wished he could bore holes into Bokuto’s head for waking him up like that. A wing spiker’s slap was nothing to joke about.

 

“What the fuck, Koutarou?!” he yelled, his voice hoarse because of his sleepiness, supporting himself on his elbows. When he finally could focus on something, he saw Bokuto sitting in the ground, right next to the bed, looking at him with desperate eyes.

 

“K-K-Keiji… Look…” Bokuto stumbled in his words, sounding as terrified as he looked, which just made Akaashi angrier. He just laid down again, giving him his back. He could handle this, he had baby sisters he took care of. Akaashi got slapped again. “I’m serious!!! Look!!!!!”

 

This time, he did look, and he finally understood why it was important.

 

Bokuto held the infant in his trembling arms, but they looked completely different than before: their face distorted, looking more like a puppy or a wolf cub, their tiny body also being half transformed, even though they still cried like a human baby. Akaashi felt the air leaving his lungs and gasped loudly, his heart racing. Was this a nightmare? Please, be a nightmare. He pinched himself once, twice, thrice, but the baby’s face wouldn’t turn back to normal, their wails getting louder. His eyes met with Bokuto’s, his panic way too real. He should’ve startled awake by now, but, still unconvinced, he crawled to the edge of the bed and hesitantly touched the child’s face, feeling the soft orange fur under his touch. It was real, all real, and Akaashi wanted to scream in horror, but nothing came out, his mouth left agape.

 

It took his parent’s years to convince him werewolves and other supernatural creatures didn’t exist, but it turned out they were wrong all that time: he was face to face with what he could only call a cryptid, his perception of the world changing completely. And he could tell his boyfriend felt the same way.

 

Akaashi ran his hands through his face and hair, trying to calm himself down and suppress the urge to run away from his own apartment, which led to nothing. So he got up (which proved to be really hard since his legs felt so weak) and walked to the kitchen. Spending some time there, he washed his face in the sink, letting the cold wind and light rain coming from the window hit him; hoping this would help him breathe better.

 

This was probably the freakiest shit he had seen in his life, the fear building up in his gut preventing him from thinking of any course of action like he usually did. He could hear Bokuto talking behind him in a panicked tone, but he couldn’t really understand what he was saying, as if he was far away or in another room, the sound muffled by the mess going on in his mind.

 

That… That was the reason this baby was abandoned, they were… Cursed. Cursed? Or born this way? Were they dangerous to those surrounding them, like a proper werewolf? No, they weren’t a werewolf, or, at least, not the classic type, because the moon wasn’t full and yet there they were, half transformed, screaming from the top of their lungs. But that child surely was, at least, not completely human. A wolf-child…  

 

Eventually, the cold water and the wind did help, slowing down his thoughts, allowing him to understand his surroundings again. he finally realized Bokuto was talking nonstop because he couldn’t find the diapers Ms. Suzumeda gave them and was pacing around the room, bouncing the newborn in his arms as he searched. And that needed to be solved first, not his endless questions, that still lingered in the back of his mind.

 

Akaashi left his spot on the kitchen and started looking for the baby supplies too, eventually finding them right next to the futon, the most logical place such a thing could be. They sigh in unison, both laying down on the guest’s futon to clean, change the diaper and (eventually) make the infant sleep. Akaashi lulled the boy (realizing this was quite a surprise, something in his mind making him think he was a girl) with some children’s songs he remembered from his own childhood.

 

The two adults stare at each other as they laid the baby down, breathing in and out as the new reality sinked in.

 

This wasn’t a normal child at all, so they couldn’t treat him as such. Which means they had no plan. Wolf children were not recognized as real, both of them knew that—deemed as fantasy creatures, like unicorns. What would become of him if he was handed to the orphanage, left in the hands of the state? Would he have a normal life, a chance to be adopted like the other kids? Or would he end up as test subject to doctors and be experimented on? Would he be treated properly? Akaashi and Bokuto shared a look. A sad, worried look, having the same thoughts.

 

They were already attached, as if they already had a deep connection with him, even though it didn’t make any real sense for them to be, and imagining such a dark future to him made them sick.

 

“We have to keep him.” Akaashi thought out loud, his hand gently caressing the baby’s hand, that clung to his finger. The idea was just as nerve-wracking as giving him up, for several reasons. They lived in a tiny apartment in Tokyo, were still college students, unemployed, had no real experience raising a child and probably weren’t even mature enough to do so. They weren’t ready for this, or, at least, Akaashi didn’t feel like he was. But…

 

“What?” Bokuto, who was also watching the baby sleep, his hand gently running through his hair, looked up, surprised to hear what he just heard.

 

“We have to keep him, Koutarou.” and yet, he repeated himself, staring his boyfriend deep in the eyes, intense as he usually is when he’s being serious, but still feeling his limbs shaking. He wanted to proceed, say something more, vocalize his worries, his fears, but nothing else left his mouth. Instead, a very specific memory popped up in his mind.

 

_“I wouldn’t mind if we had kids someday.”_

 

“I heard the first time, I just… Didn’t think you’d be the one proposing that.” Bokuto confessed, a small laugh leaving his mouth, finding a bit of humor in that. Well, he wasn’t wrong—Akaashi himself felt weird saying that, specially since he was terrified of the idea, but still determined to go with it. They stared each other some more, listening to the rain falling outside once again, their desperation slowly dissipating into the air. At some point, they started holding hands without really noticing. “Are we really going to do this?” Bokuto interrupted the silence with another question, squeezing his hand, trying to reassure himself (both of them, really).

 

Akaashi hesitated for a second, feeling the urge to pick at his nails for a second, before answering the most vehement “Yes.” he could muster. His fears were still in his mind, clawing at his chest, but those memories and the comfortable pressure of Bokuto’s hand in his reminded him that he was not going to deal with that alone, loosening his fear’s grip on him.

 

This was one of his biggest dreams, after all, something he really wanted in his future.

 

Which wasn’t enough to feel completely calm about the situation, all his doubts still very present. He couldn’t help but stare at the baby, _his baby_ , like he was waiting for him to do something. Behind his soft sleeping face and fluffy orange hair laid many secrets Akaashi desperately wanted to uncover, feeling as threatened as he felt compelled to hold him in his arms.

 

It didn’t matter how much he tried to convince himself that he was harmless as any other newborn, nothing really indicating that that wasn’t the case, he couldn’t bring himself to peace.

 

Akaashi stared and stared, seemingly for hours, until Bokuto said they should try to sleep, even though it was pretty clear that they wouldn’t really rest that night. It was 3 a.m. at that point and they were still tense, evident from their tensed up shoulders and worried faces, but he insisted.

 

“We won’t feel as tired in the morning if we lay down, at least.” Bokuto affirmed as he forced Akaashi to get up, hugging him tightly, raising him up and then dragging him to bed.

 

He considered fighting it, wanting to stay awake and research the hell out of that situation, but it was really hard when his tired body really appreciated laying down on his bed once again and the warmth of his boyfriend (and being manhandled by said buff boyfriend, go figure), so he remained still in his spot as Bokuto covered him and turned off the lights.

 

None of them actually slept, as predicted, spending the night alternating between looking at each other in the low light coming from the outside, getting up to change the newborn’s diapers or feeding him, and Google searching for answers on their phones.

 

They wanted to know more about this child that they claimed as their own, know anything they could about half-wolf-half-people, whatever could aid them in dealing with such a special child, but they found nothing except for urban legends, creepypastas and, oddly enough, people’s fursonas.

  
They should've expected that, really. _They were on their own._


	2. you have friends by your side.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hello!!!!!!!!!!!! i'm back!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!  
> remember when i said i was gonna try to not take too long with this update??? yeah......... didn't quite work. life happens too much sometimes, y'know?? klgsdhglkkl university life is tough, writer blocks exist, etc.......... ANYWAY!!!!!! what matters is that i am here and that i finished another chapter!!!!!!!! fUCK YEAH  
> you all know the gist of it now. its bokuaka, its self-indulgent, its emotional. a little less serious than i anticipated, but still... klgahskglashgadslkghsdkl  
> hope y'all enjoy your reading!!!

When they were done pretending to sleep, Bokuto and Akaashi got big mugs of coffee, dissolved as much sugar in it as possible, gulped it down and went back to researching. This time, about more pressing matters: they needed actual baby stuff, their son’s _own stuff_ , because they couldn’t keep those lended things from Ms. Suzumeda forever.

 

First of all, they actually needed to know what were all the things a newborn absolutely needed, and secondly, they needed to know how much all of that would cost.

 

And it didn’t take them too long researching and making a list to figure out that a lot of their money would be spent on this: baby formula, baby bottles, wet wipes, creams, ointments, baby powder, diapers, personal hygiene items, bibs, napkins, pacifiers, toys, without even mentioning about actual furniture needed.

 

The list seemed endless and their imaginary money was flying away, escaping their grasps. They didn’t really know what they were doing before diving in, did they?

 

The couple contemplated as they continuously alternated between looking at each other and their phone/notebook screens with furrowed brows. They would have to use all their savings and their credit cards a lot, that was certain.

 

Akaashi was starting to have second thoughts about the whole Having a Child Right Then and There situation, not only because of the costs. Were they going to tell their parents about it and ask for help? Because life would be tough with so many extra costs, half time jobs wouldn’t be enough. Also, if they did tell their parents, how would they react? Would they take that lightly? Just imagining his mom’s reaction made him anxious. She could surely help them, since their family was doing pretty good financially, but she most definitely wouldn’t approve of her young son adopting a baby so soon, without even being graduated from college.

 

Which brought up even more questions, one thought getting him to the other, until, without realizing, he had taken away the owl plushie from the baby’s hands and was tightly squishing it, his knuckles going white, as the newborn stared with confused little eyes.

 

“I’m sorry…” Akaashi sighed as he gave his son his toy back, even though he wasn’t crying or anything.

 

“Hey,” Bokuto called his attention, getting his notebook away from his lap and on top of the table to stretch his arms and give free space. “do you want to switch a little bit?” he offered, as if he was proposing that solely to help him, until he started to pout. “C’mon, I want to hold him, too.” Bokuto complained, to which Akaashi wheezed before complying and handing him the baby, that didn’t protest.

 

“So, did you find something interesting?” Akaashi asked like he did many times that day while he helped Bokuto accommodate the child in his lap and arms in a way that he could still use his cell phone with a hand.

 

Bokuto made a sour face once again when questioned. “The cheapest places are the ones that deliver shit the slowest.” They both sighed in exasperation by the end of the sentence. “We can’t wait a whole fucking month for a crib.”

 

“Yeah, we can’t keep him on the guest’s futon for too long.” Akaashi completed as he looked at said futon, all covered in plushies.

 

Bokuto and Akaashi decided they couldn’t stay inside looking for bargains for a lot longer, because they needed some of those things as soon as possible and the only way was to go buy said things on a physical store.

 

So they google searched how to safely tie up a bedsheet around themselves to use as an improvised carrier (that the search engine gladly informed them that that was called a baby sling, which made them see the extent of their inexperience as parents), wrapped it around Bokuto as best as they could, placed their child on the blankets and left, forgetting to change into new clothes.

 

It was a very weird walk to the subway station for some reason Akaashi couldn’t put his finger to. There was nothing out of the ordinary going on around him—the scorching sun was shining on them as it did every summer day, the buildings didn’t change, there were people all around him. Tokyo looked perfectly normal.

 

Akaashi probably was feeling weird because of the sudden change of objectives in his life or something. It wasn’t like he was expecting to go shopping for baby stuff to accommodate his newborn son, or that he would _have_ a newborn son before his 30’s. That should be it.

 

And he just felt more weirded out by all of the situation when they actually got to the baby store they had in mind and entered, quickly getting the unwanted attention of the shopkeepers, all full of smiles and eager to sell them some expensive things. Akaashi couldn’t really blame them, it was their job as retail workers to look super happy and sell them those products. Besides, they actually needed some help from people that (presumably) knew about babies’s wants and needs.

 

But he still felt uncomfortable under that sort of spotlight. _Especially_ when their shopping cart was getting fuller with clothes and furniture, their bill getting larger, and they wouldn’t get a single second of peace because the woman helping them out—that surely didn’t look like they had a child but still knew so much about children—really wanted to chat with them, know about their lives and about their son, that was very awake and looking around with very curiously.

 

And her questions were getting progressively harder.

 

“Thanks for buying with us,” the shopkeeper smiled politely as she scanned and packed the products, the price making Akaashi feel himself go cold, not because of the air conditioning. “I hope you both are satisfied with the products. They’re very high quality.” She reassured, giving them a little wink and going quiet for a while as they figured out how to pay for all that.

 

Then, when they were done and she handed them their bags, she asked: “Oh, I almost forgot! What’s his name?” she pointed at their baby with her head, staring at him with genuine warmth.

 

There was silence between them for a second as Bokuto and Akaashi shared looks, realizing they made a mistake.

 

They knew they wouldn’t be able to answer all her questions, since he was just “adopted” and they didn’t know much about baby stuff in general, but they probably should’ve thought of a name beforehand.

 

It was something that was really bothering Akaashi, to begin with. They didn’t have the time to actually sit and search for baby names, since they figured that knowing what a wolf-child was was a much more pressing matter, but calling him “baby” or “puppy” or all of Bokuto’s outrageous pet names was really bothersome and it felt really wrong to do. The baby was still part human, wasn’t it? He deserved some respect.

 

Akaashi figured it needed to be fixed as soon as they had time, but didn’t really think that they should’ve _made_ time to think about it before going out with him.

 

And he felt even dumber when he realized he was thinking about it again as they walked to the subway, but completely forgot about it.

 

After nervously glancing at each other for some time, Bokuto gave a single look at their baby and blurted “ _It’s Shouyou._ ” while putting his wallet on his pocket to play around with his son’s messy orange hair, smiling affectionately at him—an awkwardly fitting name given that Bokuto thought it up in the spot. Akaashi couldn’t help but smile at the scene, wave of affection washing over him, but quickly went back to looking at the young attendant to not leave her hanging.

 

They’d try to come up with a better name later and get nothing.

 

“What a lovely name.” she cheerfully replied, leaning on the counter to offer her finger to the baby, letting him hold her with his tiny hand. “You’re so cute…” she told him with a funny voice, before looking at Bokuto and Akaashi again. “Have a nice day. If you need anything else, we’re open every day.”

 

They bowed, thanked her and left the store, only to repeat the same process again on a new store, only having so face slightly different questions — questions that not all the times came from shopkeepers, to their surprise.

 

And that was when it clicked on Akaashi: the reason he was feeling so weird walking around the streets was because of the incredible amount of pregnant women he was seeing. He came to this realization at their last stop, when he got in by himself to get some books about raising children and two different ladies started to talk to him while they searched the bookshelves as well, asking him questions, sharing details with him that he didn’t even ask for. He patiently heard what they wanted to tell him, imagining that they didn’t have many friends to talk about pregnancy with to the point of talking to some stranger at a bookstore, but as he nodded to whatever they were telling him, his mind was thinking about his newest “discovery”.

 

Pregnant women, both men and women carrying babies or walking around with strollers, parents holding their child’s hands as they crossed the streets. They were everywhere he looked, like, somehow, Tokyo’s baby population had grown in the span of a single night. It was a bizarre sight, even though he had witnessed a newborn baby turn into a wolf the night before.

 

Akaashi couldn’t help but stare them down on their walk back home, like he and Bokuto weren’t walking around with a baby of their own.

 

“Are you constipated or something?” Bokuto asked after they left the subway station, to which Akaashi only raised him an eyebrow. “You’re making a funny face.”

 

“That’s not it.” Akaashi’s lips tilted upwards, but not quite. “It’s just…” His eyes slowly slipped away from Bokuto and back at the pregnant lady walking alongside them on the other side of the street. Bokuto’s eyes followed his.

 

“ _Oooooh_ ,” after a few seconds of staring as well, Bokuto finally seemed to get it. “I noticed, too. Pretty freaky, huh?”

 

“Yeah…” he sighed before focusing again on his own path.

 

“Selective vision is a weird thing…” he went silent for a while and Akaashi would’ve allowed himself to go back into staring babies if he didn’t catch the tiny, mischievous smile on his boyfriend’s face. “But if you really need to fart, _please_ do it while we’re out. I don’t wanna smell it.”

 

Akaashi let out a soft gasp and Bokuto wheezed.

 

“Don’t make me this face, we both know you stink!” he continued, leaning in to laugh in Akaashi’s ear and try to kiss his cheek, but got a hand to his face and a massive amount of shopping bags that swung around straight into his stomach when Akaashi raised his arm.

  
“You’re _disgusting_.” Akaashi looked the other way, trying to hide both his embarrassment and the smile he really wished wasn’t spreading across his face.

 

Which didn’t particularly work, because Bokuto really did know him too well for that. And was too good at making him laugh, even when he didn’t want to.

 

“But you _loooove_ me, don’t you?”

 

After a fit of giggles, they went back to being silent, observing the crowd around them once again. At some point, they started feeling like people were looking back at them, observing them as well, but they ignored it and started walking quicker. Shouyou was starting to get uneasy on the baby sling and they had a lot of things to sort out when they got home.

 

Like figuring out the furniture.

 

Not only they received the grim reminder that they lived in a very cramped apartment that wasn’t suited for accommodating more than 2 people, but they also realized they had no idea how to assemble their newly acquired baby furniture, totally not understanding the manual’s instructions.

 

It felt like playing with construction blocks all over again, except it wasn’t fun at all, it was only frustrating. Bokuto and Akaashi opened up one by one, spreading its pieces all over the floor, grabbing something with their hands and trying to figure out what fitted in or not, while Shouyou comfortably slept on their bed. Nothing seemed to make sense, ever, and most of the time they’d only realize they were doing everything wrong when they noticed that what they build looked _nothing_ like the illustrations.

 

Bokuto stopped being any helpful at some point, when he got too tired to care and announced they were going to sleep on the floor and leave their bed to the baby. Akaashi had to convince him otherwise.

 

After a long afternoon trying to assemble the new furniture and rearranging the existing furniture to accommodate said new things, Bokuto and Akaashi finally got the rest they needed — starting by taking out those clothes that they were wearing since the day before. Not only they were nasty, as expected from clothes that were worn for more than 12 hours in the middle of summer, but they felt awfully tight, especially Akaashi’s binder, that was pressing against his ribcage for way too long.  All of those were so smelly they would’ve thrown them away if it wasn’t for the emotional value attached to them.

 

They took the longest shower ever, put on only t-shirts and boxers and laid in bed around Shouyou, not wanting to disturb his sleep, at least Bokuto decided he wasn’t done with physical affection for the day and moved the baby to lay on his chest. They were exhausted, their eyes almost closing up for good every time they blinked.

 

But, as it usually went, Akaashi’s thoughts that kept them awake — the arrangement of their furniture wasn’t the only thing that would change. And him, being an overthinker since he could remember, could not get any sleep, eyes fixated on Bokuto and the baby as they slept, his boyfriend’s snores filling his ears but not distracting him from his worries.

 

Akaashi would’ve fallen deeper into that rabbit hole if his thoughts didn’t get interrupted by a loud knock on the apartment door, getting them to a halt. He stared at Bokuto as his eyes blinked erratically from startle-awaking, raising him an eyebrow, to which he only got an I-don’t-know sound as an answer.

 

They didn’t move or make a sound for a while, hoping that maybe whoever it was would give up, imagining that no one was at home, but they only got louder, banging at the door more and more, until it was clear who were the people at the door: Kuroo and Oikawa, showing up unannounced, wanting to hang out. This wasn’t anything new, those two were incredibly talented in arriving at inconvenient times, but it still annoyed the hell out of Bokuto and Akaashi.

 

“Are we going to let them in?” Bokuto grunted, dragging his hand through his face and hair and rolling his eyes.

 

“They’re going to whine if we don’t.” Akaashi rolled to lay on his stomach and buried his face on his pillow, sighing into it.

 

That surely wasn’t the way or the time they wanted their friends to know about Shouyou, but it seemed to be unavoidable. Kuroo and Oikawa wouldn’t leave.

 

The couple looked at each other, listening for another round of their knocks before Bokuto got up to open for them, holding their baby against his shoulder. Akaashi considered getting up as well to get dressed, but decided not to. He was too comfortable like that to be bothered.

 

“Hey, guys!” he greeted them with a smile nonetheless, trying to pretend he wasn’t exhausted. “Come in!”

 

“I’m offended you guys considered ignoring us,” Oikawa started as he stepped in, pouting like a small child. “We bring food and games and this is how you…” He would’ve continued if Kuroo didn’t elbow him, finally looking at the baby in his friend’s arms. “What… are you doing… with this baby?”

 

Akaashi watched from the bed as his friends’ expressions slowly changed from mild annoyance to shock and disbelief as they finally noticed not only Shouyou, but all of the new furniture and decoration. It was a priceless scene, seeing the two most talkative people he knew get wide-eyed and speechless, alternating between looking at the plushies laying around and staring Bokuto and Akaashi like they were waiting for the couple to start laughing and claim it was just an elaborate prank.

 

“It’s our son, Shouyou.” They were dead serious, though. Bokuto carefully changed how he was holding the baby, proudly presenting him to his two “uncles”.

 

There was thick silence for a while.

 

“What the…” Kuroo whispered, covering his mouth with his hand afterwards, putting the plastic bags he had with him on the ground.

 

“Y’know,” Oikawa clapped his hands right in front of his mouth like he was starting to pray, audibly inhaled and then pointed his hands at Bokuto, his facial expression blank if it wasn’t for the obvious judgement in his eyes. “when I told you two to get married and all… I wasn’t serious.”

 

“We didn’t get married, dude.” Bokuto tilted his head to the side.

 

“How did you adopt a child, then?” Oikawa questioned, furrowing his eyebrows.

 

“We… didn’t…” his smile turned into a small, coward one, and he searched for reassurance in Akaashi, that had been just silently watching the conversation happen. Oikawa’s and Kuroo’s eyes darted towards him, too.

 

“We found him abandoned at the street and decided to keep him.” Akaashi said, staring them back with a blank expression. He knew fully well that their motives wouldn’t be completely understood unless they allowed the two visitors to see Shouyou’s transformation (he can’t blame them; he would never believe anyone that told him such a thing, either), but it was best to tell them the truth than fabricate one that Bokuto wouldn’t be able to keep.

 

Bokuto was also taken aback by his honesty, because he too stared at his boyfriend with clear surprise.

 

“Okay, so,” Kuroo broke the silence after cleaning up his throat “it doesn’t surprise me that you’d do it, Bokuto… but how did you convince Akaashi to do it?”

 

“I’m glad you believe in me, bro,” Bokuto beamed at him, holding his laughter in when he continued with: “but he was the one to propose it. I didn’t have to convince him.”

 

Akaashi felt his cheeks burn when once again Kuroo and Oikawa stared at him, both wide-eyed, their disbelief crystal clear, as if it wasn’t already. But at the same time, he felt like laughing. Instead, he suppressed it and only answered with “Guilty as charged.”

 

“Kei-chan, don’t ruin your life like this,” Oikawa crossed the tiny apartment in a single stride and pleaded as he sat on their bed by his side and held Akaashi’s hand. “you’re too young, too beautiful…”

 

“Hey hey hey!” Bokuto protested. “Why is only Akaashi too young and beautiful to have a child now? Am I not beautiful for you?”

 

“Objectively speaking, no,” Oikawa deadpanned.

 

Mock offence turned into real offence and Bokuto immediately pouted, muttering a sad “Okay, I see how it is…”, looking down at Shouyou as he did.

 

The other three shared a look, a silent unanimous decision to drop the subject and try to cheer him up, none of them interested in watching him sulk the rest of the night — Bokuto’s mood and presence was always as big as the room, if not even bigger, usually affecting everyone around.

 

“You’re handsome, it’s different,” Oikawa continued, trying to turn his statement into a positive one, smiling and positively shaking his head as extra reassurance. Bokuto raised his eyes, still pouting.

 

“Hey, no moping around, we’re here for serious business:” Kuroo started, taking it to himself to change the mood and the subject, getting his backpack from his back and opening it up to take out a pair of Nintendo 64 controllers. “I’m here to get Mario Party revenge.”

 

“Not again…” Akaashi sighed to himself, rolled around again to lay on his back and then sat up to give more space for everyone.

 

“You guys take these old video games way too seriously,” Oikawa mocked, getting up to go get their bags. “Don’t you have any new, more relevant games to play, Tetsu-chan?”

 

“The newest ones suck,” Kuroo scowled. “and if it really bothers you, we can play some Uno afterwards,” he said as he pulled the deck of cards out of his backpack, too, smirking. “but not before wrecking Bokuto!”

 

“Bring it on, Kuroo!” Bokuto challenged, his voice going back to its usual boisterous tone, at least until he realized he couldn’t hold his newborn and play at the same time. “Keiji, can you hold him for me?” he softly asked.

 

“Sure.” Akaashi kissed him on the cheek as he got Shouyou in his arms, just to get a glimpse of the tiny dimple on Bokuto’s cheek when he smiles and the soft blush that he gets with sudden displays of affection, snickering at the gag noises from his friends.

 

“Drop your gay feelings and come here help me with the food, please!” Oikawa dragged his plea as he stepped into the kitchen and got out the store-bought bento boxes from the bag Kuroo left on the tiled floor. “We didn’t bring them to leave them on the ground.”

 

Akaashi rolled his eyes but still complied, joining Oikawa in the kitchen to pick food for himself and heat up both his and his friend’s food in the microwave (not that he was of much help, he just instructed Oikawa on how much time to put on the microwave so he wouldn’t create molten lava in there, since he had a baby in his arms). Bokuto and Kuroo busied themselves opening every drawer and wardrobe possible, searching for an extension cord to plug the Nintendo 64 to, incessantly joking around, memes growing exponentially, riling each other up.

 

The match went as normal: CPUs set to hard, 35 turns, with bonus stars at the end. Bokuto and Kuroo antagonized each other throughout most of the game, making constant effort to frustrate one another; Oikawa desperately bought and used mushrooms to try and reach a star to no avail and got ignored every single time he asked for the others to wait him chew his food before starting a minigame; none of them realizing the CPU was winning until the few final rounds. Akaashi didn’t really pay any attention, rushing in and out of the bathroom in an effort to hide the sneezing, cranky baby, who kept transforming every single time.

 

They lost and swore vengeance on Wario.

 

“Man, I can’t believe we lost to the CPU…” Kuroo complained as he stretched his arms over his head, getting up right after and marching to the kitchen. “Did you leave us any food?” he asked as he looked inside the fridge.

 

“I could’ve won if you didn’t steal my star, you asshole!” Bokuto grunted from behind the center table, still on the ground after he threw himself at it in frustration for getting second place.

 

“There’s two boxes left,” Akaashi muttered, gently hiding the second bento box he ate behind his back. Oikawa, who shared with him, giggled to himself. “and there’s some leftovers you can get, if you want.”

 

“What happened to the extra one I bought? The one with the cute onigiri?” he raised an eyebrow at the two of them.

 

“Dunno…” Oikawa sang his answer, shrugging, and Akaashi kept eye contact, none of them ashamed. Kuroo just groaned at them.

 

“Awh, I wanted that one!” Bokuto whined. “What else is there for us to eat, bro?”

 

“I’m heating it up, wait a little bit, you big baby.”

 

Chatter kept rotating around the game as the late runners ate the two ugliest bento boxes, the ones that got tousled when the two visitors hurried to come visit them. They debated strategies, laughed once again at their funny mistakes, retold stories of previous gaming nights once again, as Akaashi rushed to the bathroom for the fourth time that night.

 

Shouyou was not really appreciating the air conditioning, even though he felt even more bothered when they were exposed to the summer heat. He also seemed to be having gas, because he kept whining and stinking up the place, but his diapers were never soiled. It was getting out of hand.

“But seriously, though,” Kuroo suddenly decided to bring back the subject while they were eating. “you guys know it’s illegal to have a child with no official documents, right?”

 

“I hate to agree with cat boy, but he’s right,” Oikawa continued, nodding along. “Getting a child is already stupid, but getting one illegally is even worse. You should call the social services, get him checked up.”

 

“We can’t.” Akaashi and Bokuto said in unison, surprising everyone in the room.

 

“Why _not_?” Oikawa questioned with an arched brow, as expected. It would’ve been weirder if he, the only law student in the group, didn’t question this.

 

The couple looked at each other for a moment. They couldn’t keep hiding Shouyou from them forever, it was pretty clear after trying so many times and barely managing to do it — Shouyou was quick to go from really calm and curious to upset and screaming from the top of his lungs, his transformation as fast as their blinking, and it was never guaranteed that only his face would change, be it because he was gassy, because he was hungry or just because wanted the other parent to hold him that time. Besides, Kuroo and Oikawa were their _friends_ , therefore: were always at their house, frequented the same university and the same stores, and probably were going to see Shouyou a lot; it was inevitable that they’d eventually see his wolf form. It was a matter of ‘when’ and not ‘if’, and they figured they could trust the two of them.

 

Akaashi tilted his head towards their friends, to which Bokuto only answered with a slight positive nod.

 

“You’ll see.” The couple decided to not say more than that, any words spent trying to explain something so unbelievable would be a waste of time. Just that simple answer made Kuroo and Oikawa look at each other, intrigued, and their interest in the subject was more than enough.

 

“That’s… weirdly ominous… but okay.”

 

So, when Bokuto, Kuroo and Oikawa went back to Mario Party-ing, Akaashi closed the kitchen window (that was left open), cranked up the air conditioner, covered Shouyou in a blanket and hoped that his friends’ screams wouldn’t bother the neighbors too much. It was already pretty late and they had enough noise complaints just from Bokuto’s normal loudness, they didn’t want any more animosity between them and the neighbors.

 

But Akaashi would be lying if he said he didn’t completely understand if they, indeed, had the urge to scream. Watching Shouyou transform stopped being terrifying because of repetition —  it happened any time he needed something.

 

Eventually, it stopped terrorizing Akaashi and Bokuto, but was still quite upsetting. So screaming at it was a completely reasonable reaction, given what they’d actually see, but one the other people in the building wouldn’t appreciate.

 

Half an hour into the new round, Shouyou started moving around and making faces, the first signs of him getting uncomfortable again. Akaashi had yet to figure out what it was but just kept watching. In a few minutes, the newborn started to whine, escalated to crying and then to sobbing. A few seconds in and his whole body was transformed and all his paws peeked out of the blanket. It gave him a little flashback of holding his childhood dog like that.

 

Watching him cry was infinitely heartbreaking, every cell of his body wanting to put an end to the baby’s suffering, his newly discovered parental instincts kicking in, but Akaashi continued looking, allowing the baby boy to wail. He just hoped it wouldn’t take too long for the others to look their way, or else he probably would chicken out of his own plan.

 

Bokuto was the only one to check him from time to time at first. He’d turn around and stare Akaashi with increasingly furrowed brows every time until he apparently understood what was going on and stopped. _Maybe_ he should’ve dragged his boyfriend to the bathroom and explained it, but it was too late to do that. Oikawa and Kuroo made small complaints here and there, but other than that, didn’t spare Akaashi or Shouyou a look — they were either completely immune to a child’s cries or were actively trying to ignore it. They wouldn’t take their eyes off the screen, too worried about winning minigames against the CPU they set with way too hard AI.  

 

“Aren’t you going to do something?!” after three minigames, Oikawa _finally_ snapped, pausing the game to turn to Akaashi and settle an intense stare on him. “Help your fucking ch—” a long high-pitched screech came out of his mouth instead of the whole word, piercing through their ears.

 

That was when Kuroo turned as well, probably to get into the argument, but froze in place, his face gone pale as soon as he laid his eyes on Shouyou’s snout and paws as he protested on Akaashi’s arms, who quietly snickered at their reactions while he started examining the newborn to try and figure out what he needed, relief washing over him. He couldn’t bear to listen to his cries any longer.

 

They were completely relatable reactions, per se, but his friends’ faces were too precious to not find at least the tiniest bit funny.

 

“You two get it now?” Bokuto decided to do the talking while Akaashi made his way to the kitchen to make Shouyou a milk bottle. “We can’t let the social service see him or get any help. Like, at all.”

 

“What… the…” Kuroo whispered after staring blankly at Bokuto for a while, putting his hands to his temples, watching wide-eyed as the small wolf-baby calmed down and started looking like a human again. “What the fuck! _What! The!_ **_Fuck!!!!!_ ** ” he then started shouting, alternating between pointing at the baby and at nothing in particular, as if the Universe owed him an explanation. Akaashi could relate to that.

 

“ _Holy shit!!!!!_ ” Oikawa was also freaking out, but still had honest enthusiasm mixed in with the terror, excitement and fear. He’d lean closer to look in details, try to touch, but would step back whenever Shouyou turned his way or reached for him with his tiny hand, rinse and repeat, until he decided to reach for Kuroo and start screaming at his face and punching him in the shoulder instead. “See, you skeptic piece of shit?! There’s so much more to this world than we know! Explain _this_ with your science!”

 

“ _Shut the fuck up, Oikawa!_ ”

 

Bokuto, who, until that moment, was just sitting beside them watching, bursted out laughing, throwing his head back and forth, hugging himself. Oikawa and Kuroo jumped at the sudden laughter, efficiently snapping them out of their hysteria and putting an end to one of their incredibly long and unproductive arguments over science before it even began. That by itself completely changed the mood in the room, getting everyone to quickly start giggling, until they were all silent again, just the slight sound of Shouyou sucking on his bottle in the background.

 

“Okay, okay, but,” Oikawa started after he was done with his fit of laughter, coming to meet Akaashi. “seriously, how come you guys found a cryptid _before me?_ ” he pouted, getting near Shouyou with newly found interest, giving the baby his finger and allowing him to hold it. “I want a werewolf son too, what the hell.”

 

“Aren’t you satisfied with your aliens, Oikawa?” Kuroo asked with what seemed to be honest curiosity, but then he smirked. “Oh, yeah, they avoid you, too.”

 

Oikawa retaliated by giving him a deadly glare, to which Kuroo only laughed, looking even more smug than before, satisfied with the results of his mockery.

 

“A-ny-way…” Oikawa continued, trying to pretend that exchange didn’t happen, leaning closer into Akaashi’s personal space to watch. “That’s unfair. Are you guys sure you want him? Can’t I have him?”

 

“You can barely take care of yourself, Oikawa-san,” Akaashi answered dryly, moving to the left and away from Oikawa to go sit on his bed, searching for comfort in his pillows. “I’ve seen you have dry cereal for lunch at least twice. Besides, wasn’t it you who said it’s a bad idea to get a kid now?”

 

“Wow! Sick burn!!!” Bokuto howled, raising one hand to high-five Akaashi, finishing it with a clap once he realized his boyfriend literally couldn’t high-five him. Kuroo cackled in the background. Akaashi let out a satisfied sigh as he sat.

 

“Kei-chan, that’s mean!”

 

As usual, Oikawa whined some more, claiming that they were all awful friends and threatened to leave, accepting to stay only because Bokuto immediately offered some of the ice cream he had in the freezer — and also because he and Akaashi accepted to answer their friends’ questions after just a bit of insistence.

 

They would come to regret that, though, for three main reasons. One of them being that they couldn’t provide the answers his very curious friends wanted, since they didn’t know where Shouyou came from and couldn’t investigate. They knew which hospital he was born in, because he still had his nursery ID, but the surname that was listed there was made unreadable from the brutal scribbles made on top of it. His biological parents didn’t want to be found (good thing, because their face would have a personal conversation with Bokuto’s fist, probably) and they didn’t want to go to said hospital to find out, because they’d have to give the newborn up to the social services and go through the whole adoption process, if this special child was given the opportunity, that is. And they seriously didn’t know how to make their search engines get useful results about werewolves and not a bunch of erotica.

 

Secondly, because every answer was given with uncertainty, especially the ones about their plans.

 

They were still college students, having to deal with classes, assignments, tests and all the other things that came with their respective majors, that were getting progressively harder. Bokuto was about to start his second to last year, Akaashi was at his third and double majoring (because, at some point during his first year, he accepted that he couldn't skip an education major if he wanted to have a job and took immediate action). How could they take care of Shouyou and keep up with all of that? At each unanswered questions, the couple looked at eachother and sighed. Bokuto still smiled brightly at his friends, holding the newborn close, saying he had high hopes and was looking forward to it — which was true, just not the _whole truth_ — as if he could trick the trained eyes of his best friends.

 

Kuroo and Oikawa liked to fool around, but they were not fools by any means. They were smart, keeping good grades despite their constant presence in college parties and great strategizers on the volleyball court, and both knew Bokuto very well, being his friends since before Akaashi showed up, so of course they would notice.

 

The third reason they sorta regretted it was because they felt observed for the rest of the night. They started two more Mario Party rounds after that, Bokuto switching places with Akaashi once Shouyou got tired of him, but both Kuroo and Oikawa kept giving them looks, watching their moves, too good on picking up on the small creases on their faces and their unspoken insecurities. Kuroo would give those quick and analytical looks as well, but he didn’t try to pry on their business at any point, waiting for them to talk on their own volition; while Oikawa was prodding at them from time to time, trying to force them to share their thoughts. He had no ill intents with that, but it sure was annoying.

 

But Oikawa did made up for his relentless prodding by spamming their groupchat with useful resources and advices in the middle of the night, ranging from the information they didn’t get to find on Google about werewolves to video tutorials for first-time parents (that he affectionately labeled as “parenting for dummies 101”), and probably the most valuable information they could get:

 

“You gays do know that you can take your son to class, right? It’s just wise to warn the teachers first.” Akaashi read the text out loud, barely processing what he had just read from how sleepy he was.

 

“ _What?!_ ” Bokuto shouted from the bathroom, coming out mid-shaving. “We can?!”

 

“Apparently we can… ”

 

Their immediate reaction to that single piece of information was sighing in relief and sitting down again, as if their urgency had completely faded. Even though that wasn’t the most dominating worry they had at that specific moment, not knowing what to do with Shouyou during class hours was probably the biggest problem they had to solve and served as background and fuel to all the others. Having a child as peculiar as he was a challenge and something they couldn’t share with any other person.

 

And it also felt like such an obvious solution — they both saw at least a couple of mothers walking around with small babies on campus, and Ms. Suzumeda was also a student, from all they knew. It just didn’t occur to them, maybe out of sheer stress, or just stupidity.

 

They still had to go shopping for baby clothes and some other items that they didn’t manage to find the day before, but at least they knew for sure that they could keep a careful eye on their baby at all times — and not leave him under the care of any random stranger that could easily do him more harm than good.

 

Both Oikawa and Kuroo also offered themselves to take care of Shouyou for them when needed, so, at the very least, they wouldn’t need to spend the rest of their summer break worrying over that. For once, their loud friends helped them sleep peacefully.

 

(It did nothing to prolong their nights of sleep, though. According to their books, newborns don’t have a whole night of sleep and will cry a lot, and it was absolutely right. Shouyou cried a lot. That couldn’t be helped.)

 

They sent emails to all their professors about their situation beforehand, set up a schedule for both of them so they’d take turns on who would take Shouyou to class so none of them got too tired and they were good to go.

 

However, it didn’t make going back to campus with _a child_ less awkward, and it didn’t prepare them for that, either. Despite being able to recall seeing parents coming to class with their children, they didn’t realize that, like they did to those poor souls, people would stare at them _a lot_. University was, for good reason, not the ideal place for children, which was why they never saw many of them around to begin with. So of course people looked — not only looked, but whispered things to their friends, making them look as well.

 

They probably had it worse, also, because they were _known around campus._ Bokuto was not only one of the most annoyingly friendly people Akaashi knew, with his endless charms, smiles and willingness to chat with new people and make them feel welcomed, but was also one of the stars of the university’s volleyball team, playing and winning major games, claiming all the attention to himself with his raw talent and loudness. So seeing him with a baby carrier was probably a shock to a lot of people.

 

Some were judgemental, as expected. The people they came across on the street also gave them these looks — the ones usually reserved to young girls that accidentally got pregnant, but that seemed to extend to other young couples as well. Some people were intrigued, raising them eyebrows, looking them from head to toes; they sorta resembled the look they got from Oikawa and Kuroo during the weekend, but felt a lot weirder. Some just smiled at them and tried to attract Shouyou’s gaze, often commenting on his cuteness. Most of passersby didn’t say anything, though.

 

But as they got into campus and walked around looking for their new classrooms, Bokuto started greeting people, be it his classmates, his teammates or the poor freshmen that looked awfully lost and asked for his help (something way too familiar for Akaashi), and those were the first ones to question them.

 

Most of the time, it was bearable, because Bokuto took the responsibility to talk for them both, but when faced with this questions when he was on his own, Akaashi felt like becoming one with the ground and disappear forever.

 

“Wow, never thought you’d be the type of guy to get girls pregnant, Akaashi!” different classmates made this very comment, guys punching his shoulder and shy girls giggling, to his infinite discomfort.

 

None of them _knew_ that he really _couldn’t_ get any girl pregnant nor knew about his relationship with Bokuto simply because they weren’t close, yet it didn’t make it easy to him. It was awkward and bothersome every time and 80% of people didn’t believe his explanations (probably due to his good looks, which wasn’t bad in itself), so eventually he just gave up and let people think whatever they want.

 

The most important thing to him was that his professors were relatively neutral in that matter — they didn’t bother him with too many questions, didn’t complain when he rushed out of the room to attend to Shouyou’s needs and didn’t give him lower grades than he thought he deserved (despite the fact that they did get lower, mostly due to his diminished study time). They did, however, start treating him as if he was a troublesome, lesser student, and didn’t talk to him the same way as before. But he could deal with that. It wasn’t uncommon for people to do that once they got to know some very crucial things about him.

 

“I’m treated like that everyday and I’m still kicking!” Bokuto joked when Akaashi commented about that to him, hugging him tightly. “They know you’re smart, Keiji, don’t worry too much about that.”

 

Yet, without them fully realizing until it was at its peak, all of that started isolating them. Slowly but steadily, as the semester passed, the casual friends, those that were only there to goof around and casually discuss class-related things, started migrating to other friend groups, stopped inviting them to the social events.

 

Carrying a baby strapped to their chests everywhere really did turn them into boring adults: always underslept (with a serious caffeine addiction), clothes partially dirty from milk and the occasional saliva stains, concerned with a lot of other things than their next text or the emotional constipation of having a crush on someone. Most of the others couldn’t relate to that. It was crystal clear when they had to run away as far as possible any time Shouyou cried — terrified of the possibility of people seeing him transform — and people rolled their eyes at them when they came back.

 

It reached maximum isolation once they started having tests and assignments to do, soon realizing that no one wanted them on their group projects, and people with party pamphlets would walk straight by them, like they weren’t even there.

 

“Begone, thots,” Oikawa said more than once, throwing nasty looks at people that dared to make mean comments when he was around. “You don’t deserve to be around us, either way. We’re too cool.”

 

“Yeah, sure,” Kuroo mocked him but still gave an equally unamused look at said people, patting Bokuto’s and Akaashi’s shoulder while he did.  

 

More often than not, that was how their game nights would always start. Those two fools were probably the best, most trustworthy friends they had. But sometimes, keeping that secret between the four of them was hurtful — it felt wrong to keep that from all the other people in their lives.

 

Even from their families. _Especially_ from their families.

 

The thought of telling their parents that they were grandparents was a mortifying idea, one that they would rather never tell. They’d rather lie to their families and avoid them at all costs to keep their child safe, at least for a while. Shouyou had to grow up a little bit first, get a better grasp on controlling himself. They both agreed on that and, when asking their parents for money, they always told them how their landlord was a dick and kept raising costs.

 

Nevertheless, Bokuto’s family not knowing about the baby was shortlived — most and foremost, because he was incapable of keeping Shouyou absolutely hidden.

 

By all definitions, Bokuto Koutarou was a doting father: he wanted to be around constantly, pampered Shouyou as much as he could, played with him all the time, liked to take pictures of literally anything Shouyou did and absolutely had the constant urge to show said pictures to others. It got to the point where Shouyou started picking favorites, crying and throwing tantrums when Bokuto put him down or was away for too long.

 

“He’s way too cute, Keiji, we have to document this!” Bokuto claimed about every little thing the baby did, taking what possibly was the fifth picture of the same scene. “For posterity!”

 

And… well, he wasn’t wrong.

 

Shouyou was probably the cutest baby both of them had seen, and he got cuter every passing day. As he grew, he became as bright as his unruly curly orange hair, his personality flourishing: he got overwhelmingly excited over everything, giggled and tried to interact almost all the time; and his small size also contributed to his overall cuteness. As other mothers liked to point out, he was smaller than the other 3-month-old babies.

 

Even his wolf form started being endearing, looking less like a terrifying abomination and more like a small dog. He looked a lot more like a pomeranian than an actual wolf.

 

That desire to share his son with the world probably came from his own craving for attention, as well — he was, after all, spending a lot more time at home, excluded from parties and from the team gatherings as well, and he always wanted as much attention and validation as he could get, so that took its toll on him. Akaashi’s, Oikawa’s and Kuroo’s constant company and the undeniable love of Shouyou wasn’t enough to convince him he wasn’t disposable.

 

If he couldn’t be in touch with people in real life anymore, at the very least, he could text people and keep them updated on his domestic life, which was acceptable… Except for the fact that Bokuto completely forgot that his younger sisters followed him on all his social media and weren’t as clueless as him.

 

“Whose baby is this, Kou?” one of them asked him through his DMs, when he posted a picture of Shouyou wearing a cute pumpkin onesie he bought online, to his utter shock. Akaashi just rolled his eyes, surprised it took them so long to ask.

 

So, in early october, Bokuto called his sister, told her about Shouyou and, by consequence, had to show up at their parents’ house the next day to present them their first grandchild. Which was easily the most stressful situation he had gone through in the span of a year — Bokuto held Akaashi’s hand with crushing force all the way from center Tokyo to the suburbs where they lived, commenting again and again how much his mother would scream at him for that, rocking back and forth. And they were as loud as he had predicted.

 

It wasn’t absolutely awful, though. Once Mr. and Mrs. Bokuto were done screaming at their older son for being reckless and lying to them for the longest time, they were thoroughly excited about the new family member, picking Shouyou up and pampering him all night. Even made them dinner, held them at their house until late in the night, going as far as trying to convince them to sleep there and not expose the child to the cold. It was actually a heartwarming family moment to witness, one that compelled Akaashi to do the same and give the "news" to his own family.

 

He just needed more courage to do the same, he figured. His mother’s reaction probably would be worse. Because Bokuto’s parents were very open and loving, despite having raised their children with a lot of discipline and high expectations. Bokuto suffered with that, being a slow-learner and the most emotional child of the three, but he eventually admitted that the chances of his parents rejecting Shouyou were low.

 

Akaashi’s mom was, for lack of a better term, a tough woman. Despite knowing her all his life and getting her support to almost everything he wanted to do, she was never afraid to shut him down when he had plans or ideas that she deemed too irresponsible, unreasonable or just stupid, and was never scared of voicing these thoughts to him. She raised him on her own, after all, and was always demanding and strict by nature.

 

Despite being a fully grown adult at the time, Akaashi still needed more courage to stand for himself and for the baby he claimed his own.

 

But in the end, gathering courage to tell his mom ended up became an excuse to hide Shouyou from her for two more months, forcing him to first introduce them during winter break at the holidays, when he literally could not avoid it anymore.

 

Normally, the trip to his mom’s house was a somewhat enjoyable ride, where he relaxed and chilled to his favorite songs while looking through the window, contemplating a familiar, yet pleasant view until he fell asleep. But thanks to the secrecy he kept up until that point, when the three of them were making their way to his hometown to spend the last week of the year with his mom, Akaashi was awake throughout the entirety of the bullet train trip, eyes darting between Bokuto, Shouyou and the outside.

 

Sometimes, he would open up his phone dial, start typing in his mom’s phone, but right before the very last number, he’d give up and go back to checking his social media.

 

Akaashi regretted everything about that.

 

At some point, Bokuto took his phone from his hand, pocketed it and filled the empty space with his own hand, squeezing tight, rubbing circles on his skin to try and soothe him, ignoring his own feelings on the matter. Bokuto had already met his mom, left her with good impressions, but still wasn’t all that comfortable around her, making comments about how she looks “as intimidating as he did before they became friends” (which, by all means, he was right). He was fidgeting, messing around with the zippers from Shouyou’s bag, with the strings of his hoodie, his legs bouncing repeatedly — but he still made the effort of trying to calm Akaashi down, smiling at him when they made eye contact. Akaashi didn’t deserve him.

 

“Keiji,” Bokuto squeezed Akaashi’s hand to get his attention after he zoned out looking at all too familiar buildings. “We’re close, help me get our stuff.”

 

Akaashi gulped hard once he heard that, hesitantly nodding his head as he turned to Bokuto, who smiled at him once more before getting up and starting to gather their baggage. They stretched, waking up their numbed limbs, picked their son up and went to the station’s exit, picking the first cab that they saw.

 

The car ride to his mom’s house wasn’t long, but it was enough for Akaashi to take deep breaths and stop shaking before getting to the doorstep, his old keys in hand.

 

“We’re here…” he announced, taking his shoes out by the genkan before coming in, watching the hallways and waiting for his mom to show up.

 

“Welcome home, boys.” she greeted as soon as she emerged from the corridor, a small smile on her lips. “How was your… trip…”  it didn’t last, though, fading away with the warmth in her voice as her eyes landed on gleeful, clueless Shouyou, giving place to a blank, displeased expression.

 

_Ah, he did not miss her neutral face of disapproval at all._

 

“It was good, Ms. Akaashi.” Bokuto beamed at her after bowing for a few seconds, despite picking up the tension in the air and getting nervous himself, trying to set a better mood to all of them. It didn’t work, his mother’s oppressive aura too strong to be put down with cordialities.

 

The whole day was awfully silent, more than it would usually be. It felt like they were hanging out with complete strangers, despite being surrounded by the same furniture and decor that Akaashi saw his whole life, eating his mom’s home cooked meals for both lunch and dinner and the small holiday treats she bought specially for their arrival. All of that should be recomforting, was supposed to lift the weight that gathered on his shoulders from all his worries and responsibilities, but only contributed to how tense he was.

 

Even Shouyou stopped giggling and playing around with stuff, sitting still and well behaved the whole day, not even picking random things to put on his mouth; he was pouty and quiet, just whimpering when he needed something instead of making the usual ruckus, like he knew he was causing all that trouble. And it wasn’t his fault at all.

 

The only moment Akaashi felt somewhat relaxed was when he retreated to take a bath, the warm water forcefully relaxing his muscles and calming his nerves, even though he knew fully well that he had to break the silence eventually. _You owe me an explanation_ , his mom told him all day with her serious looks, furrowed brows and slightly clenched jaw, accompanied by the chilling wind shaking the windows. She was as scary as the snowstorm that was forming outside.

 

They tried to sit and watch one of those classic holiday movies that was airing, but not only was the movie insufferable, they were also awfully tired from all that tension, so they retreated to Akaashi’s old room. From the top of the stairs, Akaashi could still feel his mother’s freezing gaze on him.

 

Bokuto didn’t take long to doze off, but Akaashi couldn’t get himself to sleep. Not because he couldn’t get comfortable — his bed was still as comfortable as he remembered and sharing a single bed with his boyfriend wasn’t a struggle, they had done it many times at the dorms — but because he was hearing his mom pace back and forth around the house, restless.

 

_He wouldn’t be able to avoid that Late Night Talk, would he?_ Akaashi heard the loud clang of pans and finally stood up, untangling himself from Bokuto’s arms. Then, he checked Shouyou on his bassinet and quietly went downstairs, tip-toeing around.

 

The only lit room was the kitchen and he could clearly hear his mom doing something there, the constant shuffling of multiple appliances, the faint sound of boiling water and smell of sautéed vegetables filling the air. Judging by the time and how loudly she was chopping the ingredients, knife steadily and loudly hitting the chopping board, it was probably curry. His mom’s stress cooking habits were no different since he was a child, neither was his discomfort in that exact situation.

 

Akaashi sat at the kotatsu in the middle of the unlit living room and silently waited for his mom to finish her business and come meet him there, regret washing over him one more time as he vainly hoped that she, somehow, wouldn’t notice him.

 

“Do you want some tea?” after what felt like forever, his mom emerged from the kitchen, a kettle and two teacups in hands, the same neutral expression on her face. Akaashi nodded a positive response out of a sense of obligation, feeling sweat start to pool on his forehead. She smiled, sat right across from him and poured him some tea, saying “To calm _our_ nerves.” as she handled it to him.

 

“Thanks, mom.” he smiled again, but dropped the act as he started to move his teacup in circles, watching the liquid spin as it warmed his cold, shaky hands.

 

Both of them were silent for a while, just sipping their tea and listening to the sounds of the night. Deadly quiet, with the exception of the distant hooting of the owls that flew around the neighborhood and the ticks of the old clock that sat in the corner of the room. Akaashi knew his mom was staring at him, but he continuously stared at furniture.

 

“Are you mad?” Akaashi decided to ask when he was done drinking his tea, bringing his eyes to the kotatsu table and letting them sit there for a while, waiting for her response to raise his eyes from the dark wood surface.

 

“At you? Yes,” she gently placed her own cup at the table as she spoke. “but not for the reasons you think I am.”

 

His first reflexes were to both raise his head to look at her and to curl up into a ball and hear the harsh words he probably deserved, so he did none, sitting completely still in his confusion. She picked the teacup up again, sipped some more tea.

 

“I had a feeling you were hiding something from me for a while, but had no idea it was _a child_ ,” she started after letting out a sigh. Akaashi raised his head, looking at her with an arched brow. “You’re not a good liar, son. You were obviously hiding something.”

 

He stopped for a moment, opening his mouth to counterargument, only to realize he had no way to counter and close his mouth again, to which his mom laughed in response, a short, breathy laugh, before telling him what rose her suspicion.

 

The lack of phone calls, how he suddenly stopped coming back home for holidays, the sudden need for more money than he previously needed and the faint but almost always noticeable child sounds and laughter in the background. It was both embarrassing and disheartening to have all of that rubbed on his face. Akaashi quietly whispered apologies, telling her he was sorry, burning with shame, but it didn’t feel like it was enough.

 

“Stop apologizing.” After all those harsh words, she leaned into the table and extended her arm to pet the top of his head. At first, Akaashi lowered his head even more, but he shot up when she was done talking. “I’m not blaming you for hiding that, I would’ve done the same.”  When he finally looked, all red and wide-eyed, she smiled. “Your boyfriend told me while you were showering. You two found him in an alleyway, right? I would’ve kept him, too.”

 

It took him a few seconds for realization to kick in, but when it did, betrayal took place and his face considerably soured, to the amusement of his mom, that openly laughed at his expense. Not a mean laugh, per se, but still. Bokuto’s guilty expression from earlier in the evening made a lot more sense once Akaashi knew what he felt guilty for.

 

“I just want you to trust me more, okay?” she finally said after she was done laughing, her hand still on the top of his head, gently messing with his already messy hair, seemingly done with what she had to tell him.

 

“Okay…” Akaashi complied, finally leaning in on his mom’s hand, somewhat relieved to hear all of that regardless of how he still felt guilty about it.

 

In spite of all, he knew that he could trust his mother, deep down. Even when he thought she would reject him, that he thought he had cross her lines, she supported him. And this time, even though he was proven wrong pretty much every other time, he was sure adopting a child out of the blue would be her limit — and a completely reasonable limit to have, really. His irrational fear of her approval told more about how he felt about the matter than about her overall personality.

 

But Akaashi was just lucky, he guessed. Lucky his mom kept being supportive even when he thought no one would be.

 

Bokuto wasn’t so lucky, though, because Akaashi wasn’t as understanding and didn’t take that betrayal lightly. Once he and his mom were done with their Late Night Talk, they decided it was too late to keep going and both went upstairs to their respective rooms, and the first thing Akaashi did when he laid in bed was sneak his cold feet under Bokuto’s shirt.

 

“Whyyyyy…” Bokuto whined, trying to wriggle away, to no avail.

 

“This is for telling things to my mom when I wasn’t looking.” he barked, insistently chasing his boyfriend to the corner of the bed.

 

“Mmmmhhhhhhh…” Bokuto grunted, slapping Akaashi's shin in an attempt to make him stop. He didn’t. “Okay, **fair.** Now c’mere, we’re both cold.” he surrendered, defeated and too sleepy to say more, grabbing Akaashi’s feet with his hands and pulling him closer, forcing him to cuddle.

 

Akaashi, fully satisfied with his victory, complied, draping his arm over Bokuto and snuggling close, grinning against the back of his shoulder. That was probably the best night of sleep he got in a while, free of his concern over his mother’s opinion, slipping back into unconsciousness with ease everytime they had to get up to attend to Shouyou’s needs.

 

In the morning, when they finally left the room for breakfast, they found a cardboard box on the doorstep filled with recipe books and Akaashi’s childhood books, and a note that said “you’ll thank me later”. The whole house smelled like fresh rice and curry and his mom was waiting for them at the dining table with a peaceful expression and the smile they caught a glimpse of the day before.

 

The three of them were actually welcomed this time, the holiday specials felt a little more bearable and Shouyou started giggling again, not stopping until they had to leave by the end of the week, unaware that his innocent, cheerful laughters made that particular New Year feel like an actual promising one.  

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> you can talk to me through [tumblr](http://kenmagoesblep.tumblr.com/) and [twitter](https://twitter.com/kenmagoesblep). and in case any of you are interested, i made a playlist on [Youtube](https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLiSXdnMRsq3Ge5oc7dy7B6xXaGppQobUb) dedicated to this fic!!!


	3. even if it doesn't feel like it

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ªªªªªªªªªªªªªªªªªªªªªªªªªªªªªª hello my dudes!!!!! i know i took a long ass time to update but hERE I FUCKING AM!!!! YOU DIDNT SEE THE LAST OF ME!!!!!  
> i am so terribly sorry to leave y'all waiting for so long ladhgldhsgklsghdag my original goal was to post it on bokuto's birthday or before that, but it didnt happen. better late than never, i guess? KLHGSGLD college is a pain in the ass, sometimes i question what my purpose in life is and why i chose ficwriting as a hobby, but i'm still kicking, and still very much determined to finish this fic!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!  
> hope y'all have a good time reading!!

By the time their winter break ended, Shouyou wasn’t laughing much anymore, and neither Bokuto or Akaashi could figure out why.

 

It was a gradual change, one that they first attributed to the lack of enjoyable, free time he got with both of them, because they were back at their old rhythm, running errands, reading the accumulated books and papers they didn’t manage to read before the break so they wouldn’t go back to class too far behind.

 

They couldn’t keep their undivided attention on him all the time and they thought that was the problem, even though that had never been a problem before; but Shouyou was still cranky, crying as much as when he was just a newborn and getting used to them, even on their free days. And no matter what they did, they couldn’t figure out what was going on. Was he hungry? Having cramps? Was the wrong parent holding him? Did they accidentally scare him? _What was wrong?_

 

What terrified them the most was the possibility that their son was sick and in need of medical help, which was the thing they’ve been avoiding the most until that moment. Shouyou was never checked or vaccinated (other than the ones he should’ve gotten as soon as he was born, but they were never sure) and both parents knew the threats it posed, especially because he was out of the house quite a lot — and it was entirely their fault. After all, they did make the conscious decision of never taking their son to the social services to try and legally adopt him, so they had to avoid the entire legal system, including basic, necessary things like medical assistance.

 

Akaashi wasn’t too sure if he should thank the powdered milk that Ms. Suzumeda recommended them, with so many vitamins he would never remember the names of, or dumb luck, because Shouyou never even got a cold. Probably a bit of both.

 

“We’ll have to take him eventually, Keiji,” Bokuto pointed out everytime the possibility of disease was brought up, chewing on his own lips. “Can’t avoid the doctors forever.”

 

Their son’s weird behavior only started making sense once they realized he was chewing on everything his little hands could reach — be it his toys and plushies, pens they’d leave around while doing assignments, their cellphones or even _their hands_ when they were distracted — and, eventually, he started leaving marks. Tiny biting marks, with a single, pointy, white tooth.

 

_Oh, yeah, babies grow teeth eventually._

 

“Fuck… ” remembering the child raising book he read so many times before made Akaashi curse under his breath, gently poking at his son’s cheek in hopes that he’d open his mouth so he and Bokuto could see it better. Instead, Shouyou held his hand and bit his finger. “Hey, stop, that hurts.”

 

It probably hurt him too, because nothing is quite as bothersome as the feeling of new teeth coming out. Akaashi was keenly aware of how it was, the pain from his wisdom teeth growing out and from the removal surgery still fresh in his mind (Neither Oikawa, Kuroo or Bokuto would let him live down the things he said while he was under anesthesia), licking his own teeth again and again as he watched Shouyou chew hard on the toy he replaced his finger with.

 

“Keiji, are you listening?!” Bokuto, standing next to him going on a rant about the possible illnesses their baby could have, stopped and raised both his voice and an eyebrow at Akaashi, noticing how his boyfriend seemed to have forgotten the world around him. “It’s serious! What if he’s—”

 

“He’s teething,” Akaashi matter-of-factly stated, keeping his eyes fixed on Shouyou’s little canine, only looking at Bokuto once he grumbled in that way he always did when he didn’t get what you were talking about. “Look,” Akaashi then tugged at Bokuto’s arm and gently forced their son to open his mouth.

 

“Ooooooooh,” it took Bokuto a few seconds in silence to realize what he was seeing, but when he did, he let out a long, relieved sigh, and his shoulders relaxed for the first time in almost three days. Next thing he did was start smiling like a madman, his voice cracking with excitement. “Look at him, growing up so fast! It’s his first tooth! Oh, shit, wait.” Akaashi already knew what he was about to do, so he just chuckled and moved the infant in his arms a bit, showing him off.

 

Shouyou, blissfully unaware of what they were talking about, beamed at his parents for no other reason than the fact that both of them seemed happy. Bokuto almost cried as he snapped a million pictures of his son’s soon-to-be-toothed smile.

 

That night, Bokuto and Akaashi decided to check that parenting book again. The only one they kept from the many others they bought, one that they found in a second-hand book store and came full of little notes and tips from the previous mother that owned it. Most of the other ones they got, they eventually handed back to the bookstore, trying to get some of their money back. Which, in retrospect, was as bad of a choice as only buying physical copies of said books, but that didn’t matter at the moment. They could get new ones when needed.

 

After searching aimlessly for solid 15 minutes, opening and closing drawers and cabinet doors, as Bokuto suggested places to check while he tried his best to calm a sleepless Shouyou, Akaashi found it inside one of their bedside table’s drawers, hidden under piles and piles of tests and assignments from the previous semester.

 

(A quick reminder that they were running out of space in that apartment, but one both of them ignored in favor of solving short-term problems.)

 

They quickly flipped through the book’s pages, finally finding the desired page, the one that was filled with the previous owner’s handwriting.

 

Bless this mysterious mother, really, because she left life-saving advice on that book’s pages. It wasn’t the first or last time she’d save them from doing terrible, stupid things. After reading it all, the first thing they’d need was chewing toys, preferably some they could put on the fridge, because the cold helped with the itch.  Bokuto started searching for some of them on the internet as soon as he passed Shouyou to spend some time with Akaashi, planning a visit to some stores on the next day. Bokuto also placed some of Shouyou’s already chewed on toys in the freezer for a quick solution.

 

And, quick like magic, Shouyou looked a lot calmer once he started munching on the cold plushie they offered him, eventually sleeping on his parent’s lap, to their immense relief.

 

“We gotta go to the pet store tomorrow,” Bokuto asserted, to which Akaashi just raised him an eyebrow. “What? Shouyou’s a wolf, Keiji, he’s gonna tear through normal baby’s chewing toys in a second. We need the good, durable stuff.”

 

Akaashi’s eyebrow eventually fell back to its natural placement after he contemplated the idea and agreed, especially after taking a quick look at his sleeping son in his arms and noticing that the plushie’s seams were already loose from pulling, the soft fabric marked from bites and saliva. It wasn’t made for that — and it was undeniable that Shouyou bit a lot harder than most kids his age.

 

“We should still buy him some kids toys to carry around,” Akaashi added, and Bokuto beamed at him, coming closer to share his finds.

 

Later, when Shouyou agreed on sleeping in his crib and not on their bed and Bokuto was back to his own studies, Akaashi came back to the parenting book again to check some information, because something about Shouyou’s development seemed to be off, wrong, and it had been troubling him for a while.

 

Not that he could properly point at things, since he didn’t even know the actual age of his own child. They got Shouyou fresh out of the hospital on June 21st, at a dumpster, with his bracelet unreadable, so they had no idea if that was his actual birthdate or not. Akaashi figured it wouldn’t be after a few conversations with his mother. He could add 1 or 2 days to that. He also probably starved for a while, depending on how long he was left there on his own, and most likely didn’t get breastfed at all. Which probably would affect his development, most certainly his growth rate — Shouyou was still surprisingly small for a 6 months baby, that, by itself, wouldn’t bother him, but it did.

 

(Akaashi was fully aware that the best person to tell him these things weren’t an anonymous mom on a handover book he had, but a pediatrician, but he couldn’t and wouldn’t call a random doctor at 2 a.m., so the book would suffice. He’d talk about that to Bokuto the next day.)

 

Luckily, the book was very specific about their dates and development landmarks, so, after a few minutes reading through the pages, Akaashi figured… Shouyou was developing like a normal child, give or take a few weeks. One could argue he was actually developing earlier than other human babies, considering how he already had a pair of full-grown teeth and already knew how to roll around and sit on his own. His chest felt lighter as he peeked at Shouyou’s crib, where he was peacefully asleep, chewing the teddy bear’s arm. Being a wolf-child apparently had its advantages, he mused.

 

He’d soon be learning how to crawl and start showing interest in solid food, and it also came with plenty advices and activities that could aid his development.

 

Which, by proxy, meant the rest of the furniture wouldn’t be safe for long. Because he knew Shouyou would learn quick.

 

Shouyou was eager to do and see everything. He always stared at the world around him with awe, loved seeing new things, meeting new people, and it was only logical that a child like that would try hard to grow.

 

It was already painfully obvious that being completely dependent on his parents to move around was frustrating him: from the time they spent with him on his play carpet, watching him laying on his stomach, stretching and kicking his little legs around trying to reach for toys, and from how displeased he seemed when he wanted to go one way and Akaashi and Bokuto went the other. Shouyou wanted to go places and was working hard to be able to.

 

So Akaashi made a point to make a trip to their favorite baby store to get childproofing once they were done at the petstore, to which Bokuto agreed.

 

In total, they got 3 different chewing toys, some new pacifiers, all sorts of childproofing (from door locks to outlet and corner protectors) and a cute new onesie Bokuto insisted in getting, even though there wasn’t a lot more space for Shouyou’s clothes.

And, as expected, a few days later Shouyou was starting to move around, using his little arms to drag his body around the floor, determined little eyes set on a toy Bokuto had purposely left away from his playmat.

 

“Keiji! Keiji, come see! Fuck,” Bokuto started screeching from the room while Akaashi was taking a shower, jumping from foot to foot. Akaashi barely rubbed off the shampoo from his head before running out of the shower, immediately creating worst-case scenarios in his head. “he’s crawling! He did it! Look at him go! Keijiiiiiii come see him goooooo!”

 

In other situations, Akaashi would’ve probably been upset that he stepped out of the shower and got shampoo in his eye, because Bokuto had thrown similar fits over smaller, meaningless, annoying things as if they were emergencies, but that was definitely worth it. When both his parents were in the room, Shouyou proudly sat and showed them the toy he had just gotten by himself, positively beaming.

 

Not that he could properly see much of it through the pain. Bokuto had to guide him back to the shower and scrub off the shampoo from his boyfriend’s head, once he was done filming his baby’s first crawl.

 

When they both got back into the room, Shouyou was chewing on the table’s leg, toy left behind.

 

A little teaser of their child’s wild side, they’d soon learn. Which was, at some level, expected, since they knew Shouyou was half wolf from day 1, but neither of them stopped to consider the full extent of what it meant — because, as a newborn, he didn’t do much with it. His transformations were more like an involuntary reflex than any other thing and neither Bokuto or Akaashi ever saw him have a full-body transformation, to the point of them thinking it wasn’t possible. Not to mention that, despite Oikawa’s best attempts, none of them found any solid information about wolf children, a lot of secrecy and mystery surrounding them.   

 

They were already so used to his random manifestations of his wolf features and nothing more that, somehow, they forgot about it entirely, and didn’t think about how much it would affect his behavior.

 

But as Shouyou learned how to use his tiny limbs to move, he was also learning how to manifest, keep and use his paws, and he was surprisingly proficient at doing so. More so that he actually learned how to walk around on his front and hind legs a lot faster than he learned how to efficiently crawl.

 

Which was joyful to watch, just as much as it was to see him crawl for the first time. He managed to fully transform into his wolf form and run to jump at Bokuto when he came back from class one day, leaving his human baby clothes on the ground behind him. Adorable, really, but when Shouyou started doing this every time he wanted to go somewhere, it started to worry them — mostly Akaashi.

 

“We can’t let him run around like this all the time,” Akaashi stated, watching from the corner of the room as Bokuto ran around the table chasing a fully transformed Shouyou, playing chase, having the time of his life.

  
“Hah! I got you!” Bokuto didn’t answer right away, instead, running the opposite direction to catch their child, raising him in the air and tickling his stomach. “Why not?” he finally addressed the issue, holding his now naked baby in his arms.

 

“He’s gonna live like a human, right?” Akaashi continued and Bokuto merely nodded, waiting for the follow-up. “He should learn how to walk like us, but he won’t if he only runs around like a wolf.”

 

“... _Oh_.” Bokuto stopped laughing and looked at Shouyou, who looked back at him questionative, almost guilty. “No, no, you didn’t do anything wrong,” he pet Shouyou’s head reassuringly, but was serious again in a second. “How do we… do this, though? We can’t force him...”

 

“Yeah, I know…”

 

They had many conversations like this through Shouyou’s learning phase, often going nowhere with it.

 

Neither of them knew what to reprimand and what to compliment when it came to his wolf nature: it felt wrong to force him to be more human-like, but it also felt terrible to watch him bite all the furniture and actively try to pee on all corners of their tiny studio apartment. It left a bitter aftertaste every time, like somehow they’re keeping their son from being himself, but it still felt wrong to do nothing. Either way, it seemed that whatever they were doing wasn’t giving them results.

 

Maybe because they were too soft, maybe because they weren’t disciplining him in the right way, or Shouyou was going through a rebellious toddler phase and didn’t accept it, but he was as rowdy and wild as he could possibly be.

 

They managed to solve some of the smaller, more manageable things, such as changing Shouyou’s diapers to ones that wouldn’t slip out of his body everytime he transformed to stop the aforementioned peeing on the floor.

 

But soon, the things their child did would start bothering other people around them, too. Starting by actually terrifying Ms. Suzumeda’s cat everytime it walked by their door or sat on their window, efficiently killing all of Akaashi’s hopes of socializing with said cat ever again. He should’ve known that it would happen, but it broke his heart nonetheless, and Ms. Suzumeda wasn’t particularly amused either, coming to their door from time to time to politely ask if they could discipline “their dog”. Not in a hostile way — because, slowly and steadily, Ms. Suzumeda became their friend and sometimes would bring her own kids to socialize with Shouyou — but sternly nonetheless.

 

And it was also bothering their neighbors, as they’d soon learn from their landlord that someone anonymous filled a complaint about them.   

 

“ _That’s bullshit,_ ” Bokuto muttered under his breath as he took the note from their landlord’s hand when he showed at their door. “a lot of people have pets in this condo and no one complains…”

 

“No one should have pets, in the first place, but I’m willing to change my mind. Doesn’t change the fact that they at least have _educated pets_ ,” the landlord pointedly answered, trying to look over Bokuto’s head to see who was inside. Akaashi was giving Shouyou a bath, luckily.  “Either way, I have other things to do. Have a nice afternoon, Bokuto.”

 

Bokuto threw the damned paper on the trash and went back to making lunch. That got a little saltier than it should’ve been.

 

A few weeks after, when the dreaded cold of winter gave place to the milder temperatures of spring and the outside started being filled with green and life again, Bokuto and Akaashi got a little more comfortable on going on walks with Shouyou on their free time — not only because he needed to sunbathe, but also because he also enjoyed the outside quite a lot. They managed to control Shouyou’s howling at the moon by putting him to bed earlier and increasing the number of distractions, so they probably wouldn’t hear anything else from the neighbors.

 

So, they decided to bring Shouyou with them to Kuroo and Oikawa’s “sad and gloomy” fake double date on Valentine’s Day that year. Same national park as the previous one.

 

“You two have the nerve to really come, huh,” Kuroo pointed out with a side smile, barely managing fake annoyance.

 

“ _Yeah_ ,” Oikawa really did sound offended, pouting as he stuffed his mouth with some rolled omelette. “you two even brought your kid along! Go have a proper Valentine’s Day date, you gays.”

 

“If you really didn’t want us to come, maybe don’t send us time and place,” Akaashi deadpanned, lips quirking up to Oikawa’s eyeroll, handling a piece of his riceball to Shouyou, who was hanging out at the baby carrier and chewing on his own hand until that point.

 

“Don’t you even know about _cordialities?_ ” Oikawa retorted, still rolling his eyes, but looking fairly smug after his next statement made Akaashi roll his eyes in response: “Context clues, Kei-chan.”

 

“You wound me, bros…” Bokuto trailed an imaginary tear rolling down his face with his finger, pouting. “We’re a delight to be around! I bet you two wouldn’t have as much fun without us.”

 

Like usual, it didn’t take very long for Kuroo and Oikawa to drop the act and start acting normal, going back to their usual shenanigans. They talked about their majors, the volleyball games, the newest memes and games to play. Oikawa had gotten a new, weird card game to play that time, too, that they decided to play once they were done eating all the food the four of them brought along.

 

In the middle of this, both Bokuto and Akaashi decided they could take Shouyou out of the baby carrier and let him hang out at the picnic towel. He was being very well-behaved that day: amiable and curious, entertained by his toys and the adults’ conversation. Besides, it would be good to get him used to the feeling of the grass, since he only got the opportunity to explore their apartment’s floor until that point. It seemed like a good idea and it worked quite well for a good hour or so — Bokuto and Akaashi played as a team against Kuroo and Oikawa, taking turns to play and watch Shouyou as he patted the grass and rolled around.  

 

Until Shouyou caught sight of a squirrel at a nearby tree and quickly decided to skip growling at it and go straight into chasing it.

 

They were in the middle of a round when it happened. Bokuto immediately started shouting for Shouyou to start, getting up and sprinting behind him, leaving all his cards scattered on the ground. Kuroo let out a quick, loud “Oh, fuck” before starting to run as well. Oikawa gasped loud and long as he got on his knees to start chasing after him. Akaashi was on his knees for a solid second, holding the clothes Shouyou had slipped out of when he transformed, staring in abject horror as the orange blur that was his child ran free on a public park before he could do anything else.

 

That was a fucking nightmare.

 

It didn’t take too long before all 4 adults were running around in the park, barely dodging other couples and trees as they tried their best to catch an instinct-driven wolf-Shouyou. The little boy was running around with such ease and speed that left them in a blind, deaf panic for a while. But most definitely not a mute panic, since both parents started shouting incoherently at each other and at their child, urging him to stop. Meanwhile, Kuroo and Oikawa tried to reason and hatch a plan in between.

 

Most people around them just watched as they ran around: some treating it like a spectacle; others gasped into their lover’s embrace; two people were kind enough to try and help — a couple that was on a walk with their own dogs — but Kuroo told them off, telling them everything was under control, when it absolutely wasn’t.

 

Some just completely ignored it was happening, unfazed at the apparent dog running around the park, painfully unaware of what was actually going down.

 

Eventually, the squirrel made it back to its original tree and climbed all the way to the top, leaving his hunter behind, and Bokuto finally caught up, throwing himself to the ground and squeezing Shouyou in his arms before he got the chance to run away again.

 

“Shouyou!” Bokuto and Akaashi screamed in unison as Bokuto raised him from the ground, holding him desperately tight to account for his incessant wriggling. Bokuto was the only one to keep the scolding, Akaashi busying himself taking out his jacket to hide his half-transformed kid. “You can’t do that, you hear?! Don’t do that anymore! Don’t run away like this!”

 

Shouyou protested harder, half transformed as he contorted, screamed and kicked around, trying to get out of his father’s hold. He went as far as scratching Bokuto’s neck and biting his hand when he tried to hold the child’s arm, leaving an actual bite wound there, that would take a week to fade away.

 

As Bokuto and Akaashi gathered their stuff to leave, Shouyou’s raging tantrum turned into an uncontrollable sob, slowly looking like a normal human toddler again.

 

“Hey, are you guys ok?” Kuroo managed to catch up to them, his breathing uneven from the sudden sprinting. “Where are you going? We didn’t even finish our game.”

 

“We’re fine, Kuroo-san,” Akaashi hurriedly answered, unconsciously bowing as he was waving them goodbye, shoving their things back into their bags. “You guys can keep the food, we’re taking Shouyou home.”

 

“Everything’s _fine_ , no one noticed it _._ ” Oikawa approached them from the other way, patting their shoulders reassuringly, whispering the last part of his statement. People around them really didn’t seem to notice the change, barely paying any attention to them once they caught Shouyou. But they didn’t stop putting their stuff back, and Oikawa frowned. “C’mon, you don’t really have to leave.”

 

“Thanks a ton, guys, but it’s not a good idea.” Bokuto tried a smile, giving them a false shrug to make up to the fact that he was not only shaken to the core, but his whole body was trembling and tears were gathering at the corner of his eyes. “We shouldn’t have come in the first place, hahah…”

 

“Bokuto, no, we weren’t serious…” Kuroo insisted, reaching for his friends’ shoulders but being immediately shrugged off. “At least, let’s finish our food, you guys don’t have anything to lunch.”

 

“We’ll find something in the way, don’t worry,” they both reiterated their decision for the last time, finishing to pick their stuff up and waving goodbye, leaving Oikawa and Kuroo behind.

 

On the way back home, they stopped at the pet store to buy a small dog leash, because all child leashes were too big for Shouyou’s age. _No human child was supposed to be running around at full speed without even being a year old_. It was a weird thing to buy, for sure — but it was probably the most important thing they had bought for their child in all those months. Both for Shouyou’s safety and for their own sanity.

 

Not that they had much sanity to save, considering their study load and all the struggles that came with having a child, but still.

 

Bokuto spent the next week apologizing for ruining their fake date before he finally agreed to go to their weekly hangout session.

 

After that, Bokuto and Akaashi started putting more of their efforts into teaching Shouyou human skills, which proved to be quite the challenge. Despite being curious, Shouyou was a rebellious toddler and only wanted to do things when he wanted. Tricking him into wanting something was harder than they imagined.

 

(Akaashi expected that he’d be doing much better at this.)

 

And, as predicted, doing such a thing felt weird. Not entirely _wrong_ , because those were skills just as natural to him as his wolf ones and it was their moral obligation as parents to stimulate and aid him into learning these skills, but it wasn't a pleasure to do.

 

Until, thankfully, Shouyou did start showing interest in human affairs. Making him talk was easier, since he had already set his mind into learning how to speak and had already picked his prefered way to call each of them — Akaashi was generally ‘da’, and Bokuto got ‘pa’ — even though his favorite sounds to make were still ‘gwaaaaah’ and other similar enthusiastic noises. He just needed some extra guidance.  

 

Stimulating him to use his legs took a little longer. Running around in wolf form and crawling weren’t enough to get him everywhere or reach everything, so leaving things on the table or on top of wardrobes continued to be a good strategy, seemingly a good enough challenge to get him trying. Standing up and walking was Shouyou’s only choice.

 

So he started to pay close attention to how his parents walked around the house. Observing their feet, legs, trying to figure out what they were doing, memorizing the motion before trying himself. It took both parents a while to realize what was going on — Shouyou would spend a long time watching them all wide-eyed and fascinated, like he didn’t know them at all. Which was endearing, for sure, although a tad upsetting, too. He had such a fiery, intense concentration to him that it was jarring.

 

Once he did understand the ins and outs of how to walk, it didn’t take Shouyou much longer until he stood up for the first time after he started observing.

 

And he used his newly acquired human skills to do his predictable first move: he stole half the grilled fish from the table while they were looking at their phones, shoving all the flaky fish he could into his mouth before they could do anything about it. When they noticed and looked at him, Shouyou gave them a cheeky grin, tiny bits of food falling from his mouth.

 

“You terrible little monster,” Akaashi chuckled, wiping Shouyou’s face with his own sleeve, affectionately annoyed. “I’m gonna have to grill more fish now,”

 

“I can grill us some,” Bokuto offered, to which Shouyou screeched in excitement, positively beaming. “Not for you, pup, you already had your dinner,”

 

Shouyou got up in protest, definitely trying to argue with them with his own invented words and making grabby hands at Bokuto, in a very distinct “give me” gesture. Not a surprising reaction, considering that Shouyou lost his composure at the smell of meat when they were cooking, but still an amusing one. When both parents laughed it off and didn’t change their opinion, he dramatically sat down again, leaving only curly orange hair and frowny eyebrows in sight.

 

All that resulted from that was more fish being grilled, mental notes on giving their devilish child some more solid foods were made, and children television shows were all that they heard for the rest of the night to keep their son at bay. They had a lot to study and not much time to entertain him, at least, for that specific week.

 

But summer vacation finally came, and so did Shouyou’s first birthday, to their utmost relief.

 

Conscious or not, neither of them expected to make it through that year, or to keep this child alive for so long. There was always this underlying feeling that something was wrong, that something was gonna go wrong.

 

And there Shouyou was — one year old, laughing himself silly as he danced around the room, Bokuto and Akaashi making an effort to fill up some colorful balloons to decorate. By no means that was supposed to be a big party, because they didn’t have the budget or the space to accommodate a lot of people, nor did they have a lot of people to invite, but they’d never let it be just slide. They (painstakingly) made beef stew, bought a small birthday cake, juice and soft drinks, and invited Oikawa and Kuroo to come have lunch and spend the afternoon.

 

Bokuto wanted to invite his whole family, which all 3 adults had made an effort to convince him out of. He told his sisters anyway and they’d pass by to leave gifts and “squish Shouyou’s cheeks”. Akaashi’s mom talked to them through the facecam, since she was away on a business trip, but promised to come visit soon. Ms. Suzumeda brought her kids to come play with Shouyou for an hour, before she had to leave them at daycare and go to work.

 

“You sure you don’t want to play some Mario Party?” Oikawa made a passing comment while they played some Uno, holding close to 20 cards on his hands. “This game’s _boring_.”

 

“You’re just saying that ‘cause you’re a sore loser.” Kuroo poked fun at him, placing another +2 card at the table. Oikawa’s left eye twitched as he gave Kuroo a threatening smile in return. “Get good, Shittykawa.” Bokuto wasn’t too pleased with his wording, giving him a dirty look.

 

“Oh, we’re _on_ , you bi-” Oikawa backtracked in the end under Bokuto’s parental stare. “Big ol’ dummy. Stupid.” To which Bokuto nodded in satisfaction.

 

“We can play some Mario Party later.” Akaashi decided against completing it with _once Shouyou decides to take a nap and we can guarantee that he won’t trip on the wiring,_ watching closely as his child jumps excitedly watching cartoons. Only then he made his move. A +4 card. “After the cake, maybe. Also, I want blue now.”

 

“Keiji! Why must you hurt me like this?!” Bokuto whined, begrudgingly taking his cards from the pile. Kuroo cackled beside him. Akaashi laughed under his breath. “We should totally play Mario Party. Uno was a mistake!”

 

Through popular vote (including Shouyou’s, that didn’t even know what was going down) they started playing Mario Party right after. 35 turns, bonus stars, same as usual, except all 4 of them are playing, so there’s no computer to play against. Shouyou was also ‘playing’, having the time of his life smashing the buttons of an old controller Bokuto found laying around.

 

They let Shouyou “win”, to which he howls excitedly about, and, before Oikawa and Kuroo have to leave to do their own thing, Bokuto decided to sing Shouyou happy birthday, take the pictures and eat the cake. Their friends leave right after, claiming that they’ll come back the next day with some ‘sick gifts’ for birthday boy (most likely a meme-worthy toy they saw around), leaving an already overly excited toddler even more energetic.

 

Akaashi started suspecting he was having a sugar rush from his first piece of cake, but decided to let it go, feeling all warm. Shouyou was too happy to be mad about it. Besides, one good walk with him outside would probably wear him out.

  


It sounded like an infallible plan, except for the fact that Shouyou was _so excited_ that, as soon as his leash was set on his back and Bokuto opened the door, Shouyou ran straight forward, hitting his head against the balcony railing with a loud metallic _clang_.

 

“Shouyou, are you ok?” Bokuto knelt down beside him, chuckling a bit, turning him around to see his face. Shouyou managed to get a cut from the impact, blood running down his forehead. He stared both his parents in a silent shock. “ _Oh my god,_ ” Bokuto gasped immediately.

 

“Koutarou, don’t-” Akaashi barely managed to say or get near them before the other man yanked Shouyou from his spot and dashed back into the house. He followed in suit, locking the door behind them. “Don’t panic! You’re gonna stress him out!”

 

“ _He’s bleeding!_ ” Bokuto’s pitch raised even more as Shouyou finally started crying, tumbling to his little knees as soon as he was put on the ground. His fringe was sticking to the blood on his forehead, the bleeding getting worse from nervousness. “We gotta take him to the hospital!”

 

“Are you insane?! We can’t!” Akaashi’s heartbeat was fast and tight in his chest as he rushed in to try and calm their child down. Meanwhile, Bokuto frantically searched for their med supplies. “Hey, it’s ok, it’s not that bad,” He tried, taking Shouyou’s hair from his head, trying to see what happened there.

 

Shouyou struggled breathing through his sobs, bright orange fur coming in and out of existence in his arms and back, pointy ears showing up through his hair. Akaashi couldn’t think of a better way to make it stop other than making Bokuto stop panicking.

 

“What if it’s _not ok_ , huh?!” Bokuto fired back, slamming their bathroom’s cabinet door closed, emerging back with their first aid shoebox. He then proceeded to push Akaashi to the side, starting to clean up the bloody mess on his son’s head. “What if he needs to get stitched up, Keiji?! We can't do that here! We can’t just-”

 

“We can’t take him to the hospital! He doesn’t even _have_ a **_birth certificate, Koutarou! They’ll take him away!_** ”

 

Everyone was surprised at how loudly Akaashi’s words came out, and the sound of cicadas filled the room. Shouyou’s cries followed after. Bokuto’s face painfully contorted until it finally set on a huge frown, cleaning his son’s forehead as he whispered comforting words. Akaashi locked himself in the bathroom for a few minutes, taking off his binder in hopes he’d get some air in his lungs.

 

The wound wasn’t that bad, just a superficial cut that Bokuto managed to patch up with bandages and medical tape. Shouyou was clingy for the rest of the night, not leaving Bokuto’s side for a second, going as far as only sleeping on their bed, cuddling with them.

 

One day later, they woke up to the social services knocking on their door, claiming that they received an anonymous report of an unregistered child living with them. Akaashi  barely managed to keep a straight face as he convinced them that it wasn’t them, that they had no child, only a raucous dog. That was the only time he was lucky enough that the social worker was smaller than him, not being able to see behind him and notice Shouyou sleeping in his crib or any of the children toys spread around the floor.

 

They didn’t give other social workers the opportunity to see their door open, however, as neither Bokuto or Akaashi opened without checking through the peephole after the first time.

 

It made their life hell, either way — they’d show up from time to time, at random times of the day, and they lived in constant fear of who was knocking on their door. Whenever they could, they’d spend the day without turning on any of their lights and keeping the TV volume down, so people would come to their apartment and think they weren’t there. That was fairly easy to pull off during their summer vacation, considering it was sunny enough to not need artificial light until the end of the day, and their air conditioner was silent enough when set to low. Shouyou’s natural loudness and easily excitable personality proved to be a problem some days, but they managed.

 

Sometimes, they’d spend their whole day out, even when they were dead tired and had nothing to do out, but they couldn’t really rest at their own house until it was evening.

 

Every now and then, they wouldn’t go back home at all, spending the night at Kuroo’s or Oikawa’s dorm room after gaming nights, preferring to spend the night on their guest’s futon and eating at the university’s dining again than going back to their own apartment. Coming to Bokuto’s family home during the weekends to visit was also something they started doing more often, even after their vacation was over. Mr. and Mrs. Bokuto were always glad they came, but their son never told them why he started coming back more.

 

Not that any of that gave them true peace, since the social workers would leave notes on their doorstep on every unsuccessful visit, asking them to come forth and talk to them. Those hellish notes gave them nightmares, but they wouldn’t even dare to throw in the trash, so it couldn’t be tracked.

 

They were living like criminals, running away from authorities that they should’ve contacted in the first place. And it didn’t seem that it’d change anytime soon.

 

 _As if their study workload wasn’t enough to tip them over the edge_.  

 

Bokuto was suffering from all of that, to no one’s surprise. Facing his last year of college would be plenty stressful on its own, Akaashi figured, but struggled to fully grasp. Most and foremost, because Bokuto wasn’t talking about his feelings as much as he did before. They didn’t get to be by themselves at all for a really long time, and most of their alone time was spent cuddling and watching movies until they slept, no talking involved. And, despite being extremely expressive, Bokuto’s face couldn’t show all the things that were going on with him.

 

All Akaashi could do was guess and try to help him. Sometimes, he’d try reading Bokuto’s academic texts with him, making sure he understood all the things, knowing about his past difficulty with studying. Sometimes he’d make dinner instead of his boyfriend, even though it went against their established chores division, when he was evidently more stressed out. Most of the time, it involved physical comfort, like cuddling even when it was unbearably warm just because Bokuto needed that sort of reassurance.

 

Besides all his academic struggles, there was also volleyball. It didn’t take a genius to figure out that Bokuto cared a lot about his performance in the game, with his dedication to physical and tactical training and how much he loved the sport. Unfortunately, his performance had been getting worse since adopting Shouyou, not having much energy left by the end of the day and still insisting in going to all the afterclass practice sessions. Practicing extra hard was the single thing he could do to compensate, and Akaashi could only offer to do his chores or heat up thermal pads to offer some comfort to sore muscles.

 

And he knew Bokuto liked all of that, appreciated the support, but it didn’t do much in the long run. The only one that could get him graduated and get his physiotherapist license was Bokuto himself. And any other things that bothered him were a mystery, couldn’t be addressed until spoken about.

 

“You’re acting weird,” Akaashi pointed out one afternoon, watching Bokuto furiously scribble things in his books. “You’re gonna break this pencil, try to calm down.”

 

“I _am_ calm, Keiji, I’m just concentrating.” Bokuto gripped harder on his pencil, biting his bottom lip in extreme concentration. His shoulders do tense up at the comment, though. The other man sighed and didn’t continue the subject.

 

Akaashi’s own struggles didn’t give him much time to talk about it, either. His semester wasn’t going any smoother than Bokuto’s, double majoring killing him from the inside out, the amount of books to read and academic pieces to write leaving him barely functional. He had one piece in particular, the biggest, heaviest one to hand in by the end of the semester, that he spent most of his time researching. Occasionally, his hands would tremble and his fingertips went numb, forcing him to stop from time to time, taking guilt-filled breaks. His days went away in a blur, barely registering what happened.

 

The only thing to remind him that there was life outside of that was Shouyou, who wouldn’t cease to want his parent’s affection and attention, unsatisfied with the few moments they’d sit with him to feed him or play.

 

As the semester passed, he got only more and more feisty, more raucous, but the worse he’d do was close their notebooks while they were using them, or run around and on their laps until they stopped what they were doing. Or cry until they turned their eyes to him. Nothing too unbearable, even if it was a bit unpleasant at times.

 

Until, one day, exhaustion forced Akaashi to take a break from his work, leaving Shouyou unattended for the time Bokuto was out buying groceries. It wasn’t supposed to go wrong, but when he woke up, all his books were on the ground, all its corners chewed on, his research notes torn to pieces all around them, what was left of his manuscript (the only copy, that he was supposed to typedown later that day) in Shouyou’s mouth. Akaashi got up in a matter of seconds, his heart hammering in his chest.

 

“Shouyou, no!” he threw himself to the ground, lending on his knees with a painful thud, grabbing at the other end of his manuscripts and pulling. “Stop it! Let go!” Akaashi continued to pull on it, to which Shouyou pulled harder on the other direction, starting to growl at him. “Don’t you dare growl at me! I’m not asking you, Shouyou, **let go!** ”

 

Shouyou didn’t, but Akaashi still tumbled backwards, his back hitting his bedframe accompanied by sharp pain, that took out the air from his chest. When he came through, only half his work was in his hands, ripped in half; the other half was absolutely wrecked right in front of him, in an act of pure defiance. Shouyou stared him down while he did, satisfied with himself, but his smug look got ripped out of him when his father got up, absolutely livid. He hadn’t felt anything in a while and that wasn’t how he expected to have feelings again.

 

“Look at what you’ve done! Do you even know what this is?!” Akaashi burst out, his fists painfully shut. Shouyou turned back into a human that moment, staring at him apologetically. But it wasn’t enough to calm him down. “You little monster! You destroyed it!” His feelings sat heavily on his chest after that. “You… destroyed it all…”

 

“What’s going on over here?!” Bokuto stood by the door in total confusion, his hands still full of groceries, his eyes running around the room to try and figure out what that chaos meant.

 

Eventually, Bokuto seemed to understand, gasping at all the research work spread on the ground like confetti. He then left the groceries on the ground and came forward with a frown, directing himself to Shouyou first. Akaashi threw the rest of his papers to the ground and locked himself in the bathroom, where he spent the next half an hour taking a long bath to ease him out of his anger.

 

He started crying at his palms while he pressed hard against his eyes, kicking the bathtub. Akaashi didn’t hear a thing while he was there, but when he walked out of the bathroom, the groceries were no longer on the kitchen floor, the room was clean and what could be saved of his notes was neatly rearranged on the table with his chewed on books.

 

Shouyou quietly sobbed on his crib, wrapped around his favorite teddy bear, while Bokuto sat by it with his arms crossed.

 

“Shouyou,” after exchanging looks with Bokuto, Akaashi sat by his crib as well, putting the grid down and placing his hand on his son’s tiny back to call him. The boy hiccuped, but didn’t dare look on his direction. “Shouyou, please look at me,” he finally did, a frown sitting on his face, eyes puffy from all the crying, bottom lip jutting out.

 

Shouyou struggled to huff out a barely understandable “I’m sorry, dad” at him, that made him hurt even more.

 

“I’m sorry, too,” the words barely come out, but Shouyou definitely heard, perking up at that. “What you did made me very angry. Those papers were important to me.” Akaashi unconsciously clutched his own chest as he said that out loud, forcing himself to stop after a while. Bokuto tapped his back reassuringly. “Can you promise me you won’t do that anymore? Destroy any of dad’s work?”

 

Shouyou pouted even harder but vehemently nodded, too antsy to stay put. Akaashi sighed and awkwardly opening his arms. “Can I get a hug?” And, with that, Shouyou jumped from his crib, clinging tightly to his neck and babbling stuff against his shoulder, and Akaashi got to breathe better after returning his hug. From the corner of his eye, he can see Bokuto rubbing his eyes with a grin on his face.

 

“Peer pressure,” Bokuto claimed without even being questioned, and Akaashi wheezed. After a few seconds of awkward silence, staring at each other, Bokuto got to his knees and hugged them both, almost strangling him in his embrace. “I love you two so much, what the hell.”

 

“Koutarou, language.” Akaashi half-heartedly muttered, resting his head against his boyfriend’s arm.

 

His burden felt lighter for that night, but, just as he couldn’t help Bokuto, Bokuto couldn’t help Akaashi further than that. Having to start that piece from the scratch was a pressing matter, one that overcame any semblance of a good feeling, and the stakes didn’t get any lower for neither of them. The only thing to come out of that was Shouyou demanding less attention, resigned to playing alone for the time being. Akaashi felt terrible, knowing that his son sat quiet because of him, but he needed that. He needed that essay done.   

 

Even after he was done, assignment handed in time (despite it not being nearly enough for Akaashi’s own standards, it was best to get a bad grade than no grade at all), a feeling of impending doom kept looming over them. Like, eventually, they’d break down completely from all that tension.

 

Bokuto’s birthday celebration felt _weird_ that year. It was still one of the most joyful days that semester — he had saved some money to go have dinner at a fancy barbeque place, invited his family and friends, and even some of his teammates (old and new) showed up. The food was good and Bokuto laughed throughout most of the night, boisterous and joyful like he hadn’t in a while, basking in the attention and the conversation. Even Shouyou was having a great time, eating the softest meats and being pampered by his grandparents and aunties.

 

But, in the middle of conversation, Akaashi thought he heard Bokuto comment about feeling alone all the time, but he wasn’t sure, mostly because he was almost crying from laughing so much a few minutes later. It still left him with a nagging feeling his boyfriend wasn’t joking. Kuroo definitely picked up on that, too, scooting closer to him. No one else seemed to mind, but it stuck to Akaashi for the rest of the night.

 

“Is something bothering you?” Akaashi tried when they went to sleep. The lights were turned off, as he lightly patted his partner’s arm. He shrugged. “I’m worried about you.”

 

“‘s nothing, I’m just tired. Ate too much. ” Bokuto chuckled, turning around to hug him, nuzzling Akaashi’s hair. “I’m ok, I swear.”

 

“You said some… _concerning_ things at the table,” he pressed the subject, refusing to let tender touches and a comfortable embrace distract him from what he’s trying to do. For someone as talkative as Bokuto, he had been holding his feelings for _way too long_.

 

“Oh?” Bokuto tensed up and remained silent for a while. Akaashi was sure he’d tell him that time, but his boyfriend let out a sigh and chuckled a second time. “I’m not sure what you’re talking about, but everything’s fine.”

 

“Are you sure?”

 

“I am sure. Please go to sleep, Keiji. Lemme enjoy my food coma.”

 

Unconvinced, Akaashi resigned to sleep that night and ask him again the next day. He didn’t get any better results.

 

After a few days trying to make his partner talk, trying to extract what was going on his mind, Akaashi accepted he couldn’t force his boyfriend to tell him. He _knew_ something was off, something beyond his guesses until that point — of course Bokuto was stressed about college, however, it seemed to go beyond that.

 

Bokuto Koutarou wasn’t one to pass on an opportunity to speak his mind and open up, always with his heart on his sleeves. Akaashi could clearly see he was stressed, visible in most his movements, in the way he answered to any sort of question. He was withholding information, avoiding the subject at all costs, pretending he was ok.

 

Not that they’d be left untouched, it’d _always_ come to surface sooner or later. Bokuto’s feelings would build up while it wasn’t addressed, resulting into a huge meltdown.

 

So Akaashi willingly let it happen. He didn’t have the nerves or the time to take care of Bokuto’s emotions for him, barely keeping his own in check. Maybe it would be best to let him express it at his own time, with whatever intensity.

 

Regret hit him like a truck when it did happen, though.

 

Winter came again, the sun did little to nothing about the cold air cutting their faces as Akaashi and Shouyou walk into the stadium. That was the kind of weather that, in other situations, would’ve kept him home, buried under his comforters, lazily watching TV with his pajamas still on, but he figured Bokuto could use the extra motivation. And Shouyou never saw him play live, his only contact with volleyball being his parent’s conversations and the games they’d watch on national broadcast sometimes. But moral support was undoubtedly the main focus of that.

 

Dressed with as much of their university’s colors as he could, Akaashi made his way to the cheering stand, hoping he’d blend in with the rest of them and that the sound wouldn’t be too much for Shouyou. It didn’t seem to be the case, as the small toddler looked around in awe, checking all the corners. The huge lights, the various volleyball courts below, the players and the people around them. Excited as ever, grinning and bouncing on his father’s arms.

 

“You want to get on my shoulders?” Akaashi offered, despite his uneasiness, and Shouyou beamed at him, saying something he couldn’t catch due to the crowd’s roar. He placed his son on his shoulders anyway and Shouyou didn’t complain.

 

From the court, Bokuto saw them, briefly stopping his warm-up spikes to wave enthusiastically. Akaashi smiled back and nodded in the overall direction of the court, hoping he’d go back to his training. Bokuto huffed dramatically, but was quick to follow, most likely due to the coach’s command — who was on the sidelines with a very unamused expression.  

 

The coach couldn’t be blamed: this was a game with high stakes, especially concerning the older players of the team. Some national talent scouts were looking for newer, younger players to add to the national roster, and had a special liking for their university.  

 

It went unsaid that, if given the opportunity, Bokuto would never hesitate to play professionally. He _loved_ playing volleyball and it was a great job. And out of all the senior year players, he was the one with the best chances: Bokuto was in good shape, he was strong, he was fast and had admirable stamina. Akaashi would throw fists with anyone who disagreed with that. But his team bonding, or lack of thereof, had been affecting his efficiency in-game.

 

In the past year, Bokuto got little to no time to bond with the new members of the team, to his utter disappointment. Spending time with the team after practice was just as important to him as practice, and getting none of that pretty much meant he didn’t know his own team.

 

And, being an attentive boyfriend, Akaashi could see this playing out from the stands. He watched many of Bokuto’s matches throughout the years, paid close attention to every detail about his playing style and form, to how he moved. Granted, his intense observing came from _long-lasting pining_ , but the tactical details stuck to him nonetheless.

 

All the signs of a bad time were there: Bokuto was slamming the ball down with more strength than usual, his run-up was out of the usual rhythm, his posture was terrible and no successful spike seemed to leave him satisfied. That, _by itself_ , wasn’t good. Bokuto was worked up about something before the match even started.

 

To make matters worse, it didn’t seem like Oikawa was going to play that match, because the setter running the practice was a new guy, while Oikawa was sitting on the bench, his troubled leg awkwardly straight, instructing and supporting the team from the sidelines. He probably insisted on being there, Akaashi presumed, chewing on his bottom lip.

 

The game started, all starter players were introduced, they threw a coin and the other team chose to serve first. After that, Akaashi couldn’t hear much of what was going on, the crowd around him cheering loud, the instruments and the chants vibrating his very being. He could somewhat hear his son babbling excitedly about something, tapping on his head to the rhythm of the drums. At least, _someone_ was having fun.

 

None of the players were having fun. It was a ruthless match, with both teams struggling immensely to score points and save balls. Long, exhausting rallies happening every other point Pretty much no service aces. Both teams were lucky to get a spike in, when they did.

 

It was also pretty obvious that both teams were testing each other’s persistence, specifically targeting the other’s known weaknesses — in their team’s case, targeting Bokuto, the ace. They’d serve right at Bokuto so he had no chance of a decent run-up, they kept 2 of their blockers following him around to either shut him down entirely or guide him straight into their libero’s grasp, not to mention how smug they looked every time they successfully shut him down.

 

The new setter wasn’t handling it all that well either, to the coach’s and Oikawa’s dismay. The poor guy had no guts to toss to someone else when their stressed-out ace demanded another ball, even when it was painfully obvious that it wouldn’t go well.

 

Akaashi grimaced when the game ended in defeat, 2-1 for the opposing team. He decided against seeing the final greetings to leave the grandstands and wait for Bokuto at the locker room’s exit.

 

All he could offer his boyfriend was some Pocari Sweat, comforting words and a hug — which Bokuto accepted, but didn’t wholeheartedly correspond to or pay much attention to what he was saying. Instead, he walked in front of them to leave the stadium, hands stuffed in his pockets, face hidden under his scarf.

 

Bokuto was out of himself, almost dissociated from reality. He nodded along to all of Shouyou’s excited rambles about the loud noises and balls flying everywhere, gave nonchalant responses to most of Akaashi’s comments and did give his suggestions of what they could have for dinner that night, but his mind was far away, detached from what was going on.

 

After they left 7-Eleven with their meal, Akaashi dedicated their walk back home to think of things that could make Bokuto feel better.  

 

“Today’s game was rough on all of you,” Akaashi commented while he brought freshly made rice to their table, where the store-bought steak and side dishes were already waiting for them. He sat on his usual spot, on the opposite side to Bokuto. “But it was a good game, either of you could have won.”

 

Bokuto cringed at his statement, but Akaashi didn’t pull away. Instead, he tried to reach for his boyfriend’s shoulder.   

 

“Can you _stop that?!_ ” Bokuto snapped at him and slammed his plate on the table. Akaashi’s hand recoiled immediately.

 

“What’s wrong?” Akaashi raised him an eyebrow. “It’s true. You played we-”

 

“No, I didn’t! I know _for a fact_ that I didn’t!” Bokuto gesticulated at no one in particular before setting his hands on his temples, pressing hard. “You don’t have to sugarcoat this for me!”

 

“I’m not sugarcoating, you’re being too hard on yourself,” Akaashi protested, confident in his wording, but not enough to reach for his boyfriend’s arm again, his hand hanging in the air midway through. “Losing this game isn’t all your fault, you didn’t play by yourself.”

 

“Even if you’re right about this, but what about everything else?!”

 

There was silence between them for a while. Akaashi blinked in surprise, the words hitting him like a punch to the gut, making his own feelings of failure re-emerge. Meanwhile, Shouyou sat unnaturally quiet on his lap, taking his little plastic plate from the table and spoon feeding himself.

 

After breathing hard for a couple of seconds, Bokuto started talking on his own.

 

“I haven’t been doing anything right lately, _I know I haven’t_!” his hands curl into fists where they rested on the table, his knuckles turning white. “I didn’t lose the game by myself but I lost my spot at the national team. And the subjects I failed, and the friends I don’t have anymore, this is all on me!”

 

 _He didn’t even tell me he failed his subjects,_ Akaashi recollected, the thought sitting heavily on him. He wanted to say something, to do anything that would actually help, but Bokuto seemed to get mad even before he said a single word.

 

“Stop looking at me like that, Keiji, fuck,” his voice got rougher again, his anger from before coming back, hitting him like a wave. “Just because you have your shit together and you don’t struggle to be good doesn’t mean you can get all condescending with me, ok?! Fuck off!”

 

“ ** _I_** have my shit together? _Really?_ ” Shouyou got startled when Akaashi sat straighter, shutting his lips tight while he tried to measure his wording. But he could feel his face burning either way. “Do you really think you’re the only one struggling? You’re the only one sacrificing things? How did you even come to that conclusion if you don’t even bother to ask me _how_ _I’m doing_? Huh?”

 

“Well, you can always tell me! But when _I_ start talking about how I’m feeling, you roll your eyes! And it’s not like _you_ ask _me_ how I’m doing, either!” Bokuto retorted, but flinched backwards when Akaashi slapped himself when trying to cover his face.

 

“I do! Every single day! And you refuse to tell me!” Akaashi growled from under his palm, dragging it down his face, bringing all his skin with him.

 

With that, Bokuto decisively got up, grunting to himself. He then proceeded to get his wallet, stuff it in his sweatpants’ pocket and make his way to the front door.

 

“Where are you going?” Akaashi asked, staring at him completely unamused.

 

“I’m gonna go for a walk, sleep at my mom’s house, I don’t know.” Bokuto answered firmly. “We’re getting nowhere with this. I gotta calm down, and _you, too._ ” Shouyou got up to go with him, clumsily making his way to the door with his baby plate in hands, to which Bokuto smiled before closing the door on them. “You stay here, lil’ guy, you have to go to bed early.”

 

The two of them stared silently at the door, until Akaashi dropped his head on the table, forehead knocking on the wood, and let out a long, low grunt. He only stopped when Shouyou made his way back to the table, placed his plate on top of it and crawled on his father’s lap, lightly tapping at his chest to get his attention.

 

“Is papa ok?” he asked as soon as Akaashi came back to his senses.

 

“No, but he’s gonna come back,” Akaashi heaved a sigh, getting up from his uncomfortable position, his forehead feeling sore.

 

“Is _dad_ ok?”  Shouyou asked again, this time, tapping at the older man’s face.

 

“... No…” he choked on his answer, lips quivering. It felt weird to confide in his 1 and a half year old son, but he was the only one willing to hear and it was about time he started confessing his own problems, especially to himself. “Dad’s got a lot going on. And it hurts.”

 

“Hey, it’s ok, it’s not that bad,” Shouyou sympathetically grinned at him and recited  the exact same thing Akaashi had told him many times. After a few more light taps to his cheek, Shouyou got his plate back and went back to eating, glancing at his dad from time to time.

 

Somehow, it hurt even more, but the pain eventually settled into a warm feeling in his chest, and he went back to his own bowl of food. He ended up eating Bokuto’s forgotten, lukewarm bowl as well, just so he didn’t have to throw it away.

 

Akaashi got to know about Bokuto’s whereabouts only late in the night, when texts on their friend group started popping up.

 

_1:37 A.M._

 

 _pain in the ass kuroo-san:_ you two had a fight, huh

 _pain in the ass kuroo-san:_ ‘bout fuckin time

 

Despite the fact that Akaashi wasn’t sleeping, he painfully blinked at his phone screen, the light blinding him for a few seconds before he got used to it. Akaashi wasn’t in a good mood to deal with Kuroo or to talk about the argument, so he tried to place his phone back on the nightstand and go back to sleep, but it wouldn’t stop beeping.

 

So he sat on his bed and resigned to answering Kuroo’s texts.

 

_1:39 A.M._

 

 _pain in the ass kuroo-san:_ bo’s sleeping here, in case ur wondering

 _pain in the ass kuroo-san:_ and he told me some,, stuff thats going on

 _aKAAAAAAASHI:_ I’m sorry for involving you in this. I couldn’t avoid this situation.

 _pain in the ass kuroo-san:_ no problemo, dude. you need help and im willing to

 _pain in the ass kuroo-san:_ or, to be precise

 _pain in the ass kuroo-san:_ me and oiks are willing to help

 _pain in the ass kuroo-san:_ u guys just have to, yknow, accept it.

 _pain in the ass kuroo-san:_ you 2 are doing ur best, not failing. but u need to chill sometimes or else ur gonna go insane

 

Kuroo’s words didn’t give him much comfort, really. Not because Akaashi didn’t believe him — he absolutely did, Kuroo would never lie about this and was a dedicated friend — but, most of all, because he didn’t feel comfortable sharing his responsibilities with others.

 

Akaashi _should_ have that under control, he _should have_ known what he was doing. He used to have his shit together, to be able to care for himself and for others without bothering anyone around him. Akaashi wanted to be reliable and, for the longest time, he was.

 

But he couldn’t do that alone anymore and everyone noticed before he did. Kuroo’s texts left this pretty clear.

 

 _aKAAAAAAASHI:_ Thanks, Kuroo-san.

 _pain in the ass kuroo-san:_ its all good ;)

 _pain in the ass kuroo-san:_ but talk it out w bo tomorrow, k?

 _pain in the ass kuroo-san:_ he’s dejected-puppy levels of sad

 _pain in the ass kuroo-san:_ its almost disgusting

 _aKAAAAAAASHI:_ Will do. But I have to sleep now.

 _aKAAAAAAASHI:_ Good night, Kuroo-san

 _pain in the ass kuroo-san:_ no need to be this formal w me anymore, yknow?

 _pain in the ass kuroo-san:_ either way,, g’night, sleep tight

 

When Akaashi laid down again, his head heavy against his pillow and his body sinking in the mattress, his feelings finally started to calm down. Either that, or exhaustion started kicking in, he wasn't sure. But he drifted off to sleep nonetheless, the longest night of sleep he had in a while, waking up to the sound of their front door opening in the morning.

 

Bokuto was all droopy shoulders and puffy eyes when he sat down in the corner of their bed, holding a plastic bag tightly in his hands, claiming they needed to talk.

 

It was terribly cold and Akaashi was half awake when he agreed, leaving the comfort of their bed to go sit on the outside balcony, feet dangling of the railing, to have a much needed conversation about what was going on with their lives and what they wanted to do about it. And they talked to each other like they hadn’t in a year — completely open, uninterrupted conversation, addressing each and every insecurity. It was a little reminiscing of how they started dating, in a way, even though it was a lot harder to talk it out this time, the subjects a lot more pressing than they were before.

 

There wasn’t much space to talk about dreams for their future when it was already so near. They had to sort their life out, because the way they were living was unbearable — living in a crappy, cramped apartment, secluded and hidden, with barely any freedom. Even as grown adults, they felt suffocated.

 

But most of all, _Shouyou_ didn’t deserve to grow like that. His needs needed to be addressed and they’d never be able to give him a decent life in Tokyo, where his very nature has to be kept a secret so he isn’t taken away.

 

The biggest conclusion they got is that they had to move out of the Tokyo region entirely. Go live some place with more peace and quiet, somewhere they didn’t have to worry every second, _somewhere they couldn’t be found_.

 

They had to embrace it: that they were, in a way, fugitives, and had to accept and deal with that.

 

So, that was exactly what they did. For the next two years, they saved as much money as they could and did their best to keep going. College was still unbearable, with terrible workload and student loans, and they both had to retake their own amount of subjects until they finally made it. And living under the constant fear of social workers finding them was just as hard as it had been before.

 

But they did find some peace in some weekends, when they managed to go visit some towns in other prefectures in search of a new house for them. It was always a bit unnerving, considering that they were always forced to leave Shouyou behind to avoid paying extra for a hotel room and the usual babysitters were Kuroo and Oikawa, but it was still good. A bit expensive, but good. Having some time for themselves was _always appreciated_.

 

By the time both of them graduated, they had already decided on where to go. Somewhere in the Tohoku region, in the proximity of Miyagi prefecture, they found a tiny village with a good, spacious house that they could afford.

 

It would need a bunch of repairs, due to it being an old, poorly cared for traditional house, but it had the essentials: the previous owner left the plumbing in good shape, and the ceiling was pretty solid. The rest of the repairs would need to be taken care of and they’d need a bunch of new furniture, but Bokuto was happy to sell the family car his dad promised to give him once he graduated so they could pay for it.

 

(Bokuto would whine about it later, but not too much.)

 

The two of them decided to tell their friends by the end of March, after they leave university grounds to celebrate both their graduations with a good meal.

 

“Oh yeah, Oikawa, bro.” Bokuto grabbed his shoulder as they were reaching the desired restaurant. “Can you take care of Shouyou this weekend?”

  
“Sure thing.” Oikawa beamed at him, but didn’t seem too happy to notice Bokuto scratching his chin, already looking apologetic. “Why, though…?” Kuroo also turned around to check by the end of the question, walking slower.

 

“We’re moving out this weekend.” Akaashi stepped in when Bokuto started laughing at his friends’ faces, barely keeping a straight face. “We’re leaving Tokyo and we didn’t want Shouyou to arrive at our new house while it’s unfurnished.”

 

“You what now?!” Kuroo and Oikawa shouted in unison, equal parts shock and anger. Before they could keep screaming, Akaashi shushed them, reminding them that Shouyou was peacefully asleep in his arms, tired after a long ceremony.

 

“You gays did it again! Don’t you have any consideration for my feelings?!” Oikawa pouted hard, crossing his arms, reprimanding them like he didn’t have watery eyes. “We didn’t even throw you a Goodbye Party! What the hell!”

 

“Awh, dude, it’s not like you’ll never see us again. You can always visit us in Miyagi. Your parents live close, don’t they?”

 

“It’s a 4 hour bus trip, you dipshit!”

 

Bokuto reassured him with a huge grin and a tight hug, shaking him around. Oikawa took his sweet time, always a fan of the dramatics, until he finally corresponded, muttering a weak “I hate you two so, so much”.

 

Bokuto and Akaashi dropped Shouyou at Oikawa’s new apartment early on friday to come back to their apartment to pack, taking advantage of their free time to sort out what they wanted to keep or not. It was hard keeping their focus on packing, between hour long naps, tickle fights and a whole lot of kissing, but they managed.

 

In the middle of sunday, they were putting their stuff in their rented car, ready to leave.  

 

After putting their last bag in the trunk, Bokuto stopped for a moment to stare at their apartment building for the last time with a wild, confusing set of emotions. Despite being excited about leaving to a better, bigger house, he had a sad fondness in his eyes. Even if it was cramped, the air conditioning didn’t work so well, or they could hear the neighbors at all times (and they were heard by the others, too), etc, that place had left a mark on them, just as much as they left their marks on the place.  

 

It still was _their home_ for the time they were there. It was where their family began. In a weird way, they would miss it: their time spent there and the things they went through.

 

Admittedly, Akaashi wouldn’t miss it that much (because space was never too much) but still snuggled close to Bokuto, draped an arm around his waist and let his head rest against his boyfriend’s shoulder for a while, staring at the apartment block with nostalgic smiles. Silly thing to do when you hadn’t even left, but still.

 

Once they managed to get in the car to leave, they only made quick stops to the gas station, or 7-Eleven to get lunch and snacks before going on their long, 6 hour trip to their new home in Miyagi. Bokuto even made a special playlist for it —  to make the way more exciting, since it would be one long, boring road — with a weird mix between the songs of both their favorite singers, the cheesy romantic songs Bokuto once gave him on a homemade CD when they started dating, some new popular songs and his terrible meme music. It kept them awake through the entire trip, bringing back memories and things to talk about, but killed the entire purpose of using Akaashi’s GPS app, resulting in them getting lost and adding at least 2 more hours to the normal travelling time.

 

They couldn’t really blame themselves for doing this, though. Once they left the Tokyo prefecture, the road and the towns around them was mostly unknown, resulting in many major detours in the way. Something they should’ve predicted.

 

It was actually good that they did. They now knew the neighboring cities, where there were supermarkets, drugstores, the municipal market and other essential commodities, especially since they bought a house in a small, farming village. It’d take them some time until the region’s layout stuck to them, and seeing so many trees and dirt roads would be familiar to them, but they’d manage.

 

Eventually, being surrounded by all those small houses, the abundant trees and forest animals, the amiable sounds of the low traffic and the birds singing would be their new normal.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> you can talk to me through [tumblr](http://kenmagoesblep.tumblr.com/) and [twitter](https://twitter.com/kenmagoesblep). and in case any of you are interested, i made a playlist on [Youtube](https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLiSXdnMRsq3Ge5oc7dy7B6xXaGppQobUb) dedicated to this fic!!!


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